Supreme Court Decides in Favor of Allenstown

July 25, 2018

In a decision that seemed to have fallen through the cracks or been ignored in the news media and the Allenstown web site, the NH Supreme Court decided against Pembroke's claim to septic haulers profits and against its claim to part of the increased sewer plant capacity.

The Supreme Court's decision was rendered on June 22, 2018, and recently came to the attention of this web site. The decision stated that it agreed with the Superior Court's ruling in favor of Allenstown back in January 2017. Why a month has passed by since the Supreme Court's decision and no word of this has hit the news is still a mystery.

The following is a summary of the Supreme Court's decision.

Summary

This case presented two questions arising out of the operation of the Suncook Wastewater Treatment Facility (the "Facility") in Allenstown, New Hampshire, for the New Hampshire Supreme Court's review. First, under an intermunicipal agreement, must defendant Town of Allenstown, share any of the profits generated from septage haulers who discharge their waste at the Facility with the plaintiff, Town of Pembroke? And second, after Allenstown used a portion of those profits to increase the Facility's wastewater treatment capacity, must Allenstown allocate any of that increased capacity to Pembroke? Because we, as did the Superior Court (Nicolosi, J.), answer both questions "no," we affirm. [Emphasis added]

The final paragraph of the judicial ruling, clearly denies Pembroke's claim that it deserves a share of the increased capacity resulting from the "Biomag Project."

Consequently, although Pembroke's frustration is understandable given its contribution to the Facility's operation and maintenance costs over the past four decades, we conclude, as did the trial court, that it is not entitled to a share of the increased capacity under the arguments advanced. We therefore affirm the trial court's finding on this issue as well.

Affirmed

LYNN, C.J., and BASSETT and HANTZ MARCONI, JJ., concurred.

The complete court decision is available from the NH Supreme Court's web site.

What You Can Do

If you live in Allenstown, thank the Allenstown Sewer Commissioners and the Board of Selectmen for fighting to protect your interests. If you live in Pembroke, you should attend the selectmen's meeting and "read them the riot act" for wasting your tax money on such a pointless lawsuit. Unfortunately for Allenstown, state law prevents one town from recovering court costs from the other.

For background information, read the previous Allenstown Alt article from Feb. 2017 in which Allenstown won the original lawsuit in Superior Court.