CHARLESTON — The parties in a lawsuit have filed a third extension for time to respond to a complaint.
"Plaintiffs ... and defendant ... by and through their respective counsel, hereby stipulate that defendant's answer or other responses to plaintiffs' complaint in this action shall be due on or before May 8, 2023," the April 20 stipulation states.
ACIN, Investment Management Group, Point Lick Energy, Elite Materials and Amherst Industries filed the complaint in January regarding an oil and gas lease in Kanawha Circuit Court.
Columbia Gas is the owner and operator of a 12-inch interstate gas pipeline that runs across the Amherst property in Kanawha County.
While Amherst owns the property, ACIN owns the stone underlying the property and Point Link conducts coal mining operations on the property, according to the suit.
Mining operations for both coal and sandstone have occurred and continue on the property and in 2021, these mining operations approached the vicinity of both the Columbia Pipeline and the CO2 Pipeline, so the plaintiffs notified Columbia and Diversified that mining operations were slated to take place in July 2023 and that the pipelines needed to be relocated before then, according to the suit.
The plaintiffs claim Diversified has agreed to comply with the requirements of a 1981 Supplemental agreement by agreeing to take its pipeline offline temporarily to allow the mining operations to proceed, but Columbia Gas has refused to comply.
ACIN demanded Columbia relocate the pipeline in a letter on Jan. 3 and the failure to relocate the pipeline will cause the loss of $405,060 in royalty to Amherst, $6,314,089 to ACIN, $9,524,869 in lost profits to IMG and Point Lick for coal mining operations and $7,594,875 in lost profits to Elite for stone mining and $5,744,000 in added mining costs, for a total of $29,582,893 in damages to the plaintiffs.
The plaintiffs are seeking injunctive relief and monetary damages with pre- and post-judgment interest, as well as punitive damages. They are represented by J. Thomas Lane, Charles B. Dollison, J. Mark Adkins and William M. Lorensen of Bowles Rice in Charleston.
The case is assigned to Circuit Judge Maryclaire Akers.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number: 23-C-86