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State land owners to appeal cable deal

Posted on: Friday, 1 August 2003, 06:00 CDT

Joe Meighan and Danny Buhl have been battling in court for 15 years to get paid for the fiber optic cables laid on their East Tennessee property without their permission.

Although an Illinois judge approved a settlement Friday between telecommunications giants Sprint Corp., Qwest Communications, Level 3 Communications and WilTel Communications, they're still fighting mad - and plan to appeal.

"I think (the decision is) utterly disgusting," Meighan said Monday. "It's a slap in the face."

He and Buhl, who lives in Clinton, originated what has become a class-action case against Sprint Corp. in Tennessee. They believe the telecommunications companies, not property owners, are the ones benefiting from the Illinois deal.

"Stealing is a profitable business," Buhl said. "As far as the landowners in Tennessee, we got the old shaft."

Illinois U.S. District Court Judge Wayne Andersen's order, issued late Friday, approves a settlement between the telecom companies and an estimated 360,000 landowners that would pay either $2 or 33 cents per linear foot, minus attorneys' fees, to establish an easement covering the fiber optic cable the companies laid along thousands of miles of railroad right-of-way.

In a separate order, he also approved an injunction that, in effect, shuts down all related litigation until the final approval of the settlement. Forty-two state and federal cases, including Buhl's and Meighan's, as well as a Middle Tennessee case against Qwest, are affected by the injunction.

Meighan isn't happy that a judge in Illinois is making decisions for the rest of the country.

"I didn't see anybody from Illinois down there with me trying to get them (the telecom companies) stopped," the Knoxville resident said. "We're going to fight it all."

Don Vowell, attorney for Buhl, Meighan and about 3,000 East Tennesseans in a class-action case against Sprint as well as about 2,200 Middle Tennesseans in a similar case against Qwest, said he plans to appeal the decisions.

Meighan says he would be particularly hurt by the settlement, because according to the wording of his deed, he will only qualify for 33 cents per linear foot of property - 26 cents after attorney fees.

The Tennessee Supreme Court already has qualified Meighan as a landowner to whom Sprint owes payment for burying fiber optic cable on his land in 1988.

"If they can buy any acreage anywhere for 33 cents a foot, I wish they would let me know," Meighan said. "I don't see why they don't (just) give me a penny."

Vowell is one of a number of attorneys involved in cases against the defendants who didn't join in brokering the settlement and objected to the deal.

Sprint attorney Emmett Logan said, "Like any settlement I would expect that nobody is completely happy with this outcome, but ... we now have a means for resolving litigation that otherwise didn't seem capable of any solution in the immediate future."

Sprint and the other defendants have maintained that compensating landowners on a case-by-case basis proves too unwieldy given the mix of federal and state laws and 100-year-old documents outlining the property rights.

And the deal does allow for experts to evaluate whether, according to court decisions and laws of a given state, class members should qualify for more or less compensation.

But Vowell said there are a number of issues he'll highlight as he takes his fight against the deal to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

First, he said, a federal court should not be able to halt other litigation against the telecom companies just months before the case against Sprint is to go to trial in the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Logan said this type of injunction is typical in a settlement case like this one, and Andersen stated in his order that without the injunction, the court would not have the flexibility or authority to continue managing that case and overseeing the disbursal of benefits to landowners.

Vowell said landowners across the country do not have enough information to decide whether to participate in the settlement because documents showing that the railroad companies and telecommunications providers knew they were trespassing on residents' property remain sealed. These documents should come to light in the Tennessee trial against Sprint, which a judge has said he'd like to schedule for the fall.

Vowell and other attorneys representing the settlement class members have 10 days to file an appeal.

Business writer Larisa Brass may be reached at 865-342-6318.

WHAT LANDOWNERS GET

* $2 or 33 cents per linear foot, minus attorneys' fees, for property adjoining railroad right-of-way that contains fiber optic cable buried by Sprint Corp., Qwest Communications, WilTel Communications or Level 3 Communications.

* The amount depends on property owners' claim to the railroad right-of-way and will be determined by a court-approved settlement administrator, Minneapolis-based Rust Consulting.

* Court-approved consultants Ann Burkhardt of the University of Minnesota law school and Susan French of the University of California Los Angeles law school will review compensation for landowners from each state to decide whether the settlement amount should be adjusted based on previous court decisions and state law.

WHAT TELECOM COMPANIES GET

* An eight-foot easement on either side of the fiber optic cable that allows tele-communications lines to be legally located on the property.

* The easement can be moved anywhere within the 100-foot railroad right-of-way if the telecom companies determine hey need to relocate the lines.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT

* Rust Consulting determines who qualifies for the settlement and what amount the class members get based on original deed documents.

* Landowners get notices of the settlement, which attorneys estimate will take six to nine months.

* Landowners decide whether to opt out of the deal.

* The settlement goes back to U.S. District Court Judge Wayne Andersen of Illinois for approval.

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