States Looking to Speed Groundwater Lawsuits
Nossaman Partner Henry Weinstock was quoted in the Daily Journal article "States looking to speed groundwater lawsuits." The article discusses the excessive amounts of time and money spent in courts over rights to the water in California's aquifers.
Mr. Weinstock discussed a 15 year adjudication regarding rights to the Santa Maria groundwater basin, noting that the case "involved thousands of parties and has cost tens of millions of dollars."
"The courts could reduce discovery disputes by creating standardized forms for groundwater adjudication discovery requests, as they have done in other types of civil cases and personal injury," Weinstock said, adding that "some judges may feel uncomfortable actually overseeing settlement discussions in a case on which they could later rule at trial, but explicitly allowing judges to do so could help speed resolution as the parties are more likely to behave reasonably in settlement discussions."