Pegasus Plaintiffs Have Until Mid-February to Appeal Loss of Runway-Apartments Lawsuit
Hearing Set on Paying Attorneys Fees to City and Hall Family
The City of Green Cove Springs and the Virginia Hall family will know by Feb. 15 whether their legal battle over a proposed apartment complex south of the city will continue.
After a hearing last month, Judge James Kallaher declined to reconsider whether a previous judge had erred in his final ruling against Pegasus Technologies and it’s landlord, Reynolds Industrial Park.
They were the plaintiffs in a lawsuit to stop apartments on land owned by the Halls along Highway 17 south, arguing that the 59-foot-tall buildings were incompatible to the Reynolds Park runway. Pegasus is a CIA-controlled aviation company, which has been flying fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters at Reynolds since the late 1970s.
Pegasus and Reynolds have 30 days from the date of Kallaher’s Jan. 16 decision to file an appeal at the Florida Fifth District Court of Appeals, which happens to be in Daytona Beach. No final decision has been made on whether to appeal, according to attorney Scott Thomas, who represents Pegasus.
Pegasus and Reynolds would likely base any appeal on the fact that Green Cove had failed to enact airport zoning as required by Chapter 333 of state law. Former Circuit Court Judge Don Lester refused to consider the argument in the original case, saying that 333 only applies to “public use” airports, not private aviation facilities such as Reynolds.
Meanwhile, Kallaher has set aside a full day to weigh arguments on how much in attorneys fees the losers of the lower court case need to refund to the winners. According to one lawyer in the case, the amount is around a half million dollars. The hearing is set for July 10.
To read earlier stories on this issue visit Clay News & Views and enter “Pegasus” in the search field.