Estoppel is an equitable remedy that requires "clean hands." I am curious to see what the Court of Appeals will do with the pretrial order.

"While I have not reviewed the case file, and I would expect to find more of an untold story after having done so, I certainly don't consider a pretrial legal ruling applying the law of estoppel to limit the facts presented to be unexpected or out of line."

It seems that FUBAR, who has reviewed the pretrial pleadings and briefs, thinks the judge's pretrial order makes little sense.

FUBAR "I'll let the Court of Appeals decide whether he was in error. That's why it exists. All I will say is that I have read some of the pretrial pleadings and briefs in the case and the pretrial order does not make a lot of sense to me. My guess is that the PUD and its lawyers believe that it was in error, or the PUD would not be spending time and money on the appeal."

I'm wondering if this case is a bit difficult to understand, or if the facts are in question, or if the judge acted properly with the pretrial rulings. I'd like for trials be about a search for the truth rather than about winning or losing. It seems the PUD lawyers feel the judge's pretrial order prevented them from presenting "their" facts.

The Whole thing stinks of price gouging! The other day in the Daily World, One of the people running for The PUD Commish seat made notice that the other 3 running all said "Pay it up and let's get on with other business" (or something similar!) For me, they just shot themselves in the foot, cuz I don't want anyone handling the peoples money that way!! We put them in that position to spend our money in the proper way and be on the lookout for these scammers!

Well, I sure agree.

I had issues with Timmons running anyway. Being next door neighbors with the General Manager and having a blood feud that needed to go to an out of County court to resolve makes me wonder why he ran to be the GM's boss.

Jennings is kind of a loose cannon, if you ask me. In my only run-in with him, he presented himself as a real jerk. If he should happen to win, I hope it was just circumstantial, but I don't think so.

I've no issues with Frank Gordon at all. Barely know the guy, but haven't heard any real concerns.

As you indicated, Al Smith is the only one that said he supported the Commissioners standing up to the outrageous rates that were charged.

Even if they lose in court, I agree they needed to stand up to this on behalf of the ratepayers. He seems to be the only one to get it.

****prediction***

Just on name familiarity, I'll be surprised if it's not Timmons and Gordon in the General. If that's the case, I'm a Gordon fan.

Looks like your prediction was correct.

All bet most of Grays Harbor made the same prediction. It seemed pretty obvious. Neither Jennings nor Smith had the name familiarity and Smith couldn't have run a worse campaign if he'd been "Pancho Villa".

two thoughts-
If PDU attorneys know that they won't be able to present their arguments they would have two choices. Settle or take it to trial and hope to get a lesser judgment and appeal. It sounds like Spaldin wanted 6 million dollars and if he got his motion his way he would have less an incentive to compromise. Pdu took it to trial and got a judgment of less then 2 million that was asked for. Plus at least a third would go to spaldin's attorney, which would be less money to go straight to spaldin.
Second, there has been allot of discussion on why the fuel costs were so high. There were 30 other crews out there. Did they have the same fuel issues and costs?

No. Other crews did not have the same fuel costs. Nor did they have $98 per hour bookkeepers for 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. Nor did they double and triple their normal prices. The PUD let it go to trial because, as we've read in the paper, there were no realistic opportunities for a reasonable settlement and protecting Grays Harbor ratepayers from outrageous profiteering is what they are supposed to do.

So now the appeal has been heard and time is passing. Why the delay? If this had been a jury trial, I can't imagine they would be taking nearly this long to reach a decision. Why would a judge who is supposed to be familiar with the law to begin with take so long to come to a decision?

I think it's still in process. The case was on the Court of Appeals 09/16/2011 docket for oral arguments.
Comparing filing dates with decision dates, looks like it takes 12 to 18 months for a case to work its way through the process.