February 2014 Archives

In New Mexico, the Public Regulation Commission (PRC) grants licenses to and regulates various utilities who want to operate within the state including water utilities. Back in 1983 the PRC issued Moongate Water Company, Inc. (“Moongate”) a certificate of public convenience and necessity (CCN) which authorized the company to provide water to a specific area – known as the “certificated area”- located outside the city limits of Las Cruces.  When the City of Las Cruces later annexed three undeveloped tracts of land which happened to lie in a portion of this certificated area, the City further decided that its own municipal utility would provide water to residents and users in the newly-annexed area.

The City of Detroit, the largest municipality in the country to avail itself of bankruptcy protection, submitted its Plan of Adjustment to the federal bankruptcy court handling its case. This plan represents the blueprint for how the city seeks to pay its creditors and raise funds to pay for ongoing services and municipal investments as the plan is instituted. The plan of adjustment must be approved by Bankruptcy Court Judge Steven J. Rhodes presiding over the Chapter 9 bankruptcy matter.

Senate Bill 19 which gives police officers authority to stop and cite drivers for texting while driving their motor vehicle passed the New Mexico House by a near-unanimous vote of 62-1. As it already received approval in the Senate by a 37-5 margin, the legislation goes to Governor Martinez’s desk for her expected signature.

Tesla Motors, Inc.  and the Rio Real Estate Investment Opportunities, LLC (“Rio”) entered into what was entitled the “Development Agreement” on February 19, 2007.   Under the terms of the agreement, Rio planned to build a 150,000 square foot facility for the electric car manufacturer in Bernalillo County, New Mexico where Tesla owns property.

 When an individual or group aspires to start a new business, one of the major decisions that must be made is what kind of business entity should be formed to operate the business. This means figuring out whether to form a corporation or partnership or operate the prospective business as a sole proprietorship, and, if choosing one of the former two, whether to be taxed as an S Corporation, a C Corporation, or a limited liability company (“LLC”). 

In any bankruptcy action, the trustee has the capacity to recover any funds which he or she believes was improperly transferred or paid from the debtor’s estate prior to the bankruptcy filing. The law gives the trustee this power to ensure either that individuals close to the debtor do not take advantage of the debtor or that the debtor does not collude with someone to move some of the assets out of the estate until after the bankruptcy. A bankruptcy decision rendered last year by a federal bankruptcy court in New Mexico rejected a trustee’s attempt to recover funds from a woman who had resided with the debtor and commingled funds in a single bank account with her for several months prior to the debtor filing for bankruptcy protection.

When parties in a civil or criminal trial seek to present testimony from scientists, doctors and other scientific or technical experts, the trial judge must first determine if the proposed evidence possesses sufficient reliability to be considered by the jury. The judge must apply what is known as the Daubert standard in making such assessments. Named after the two-decades old case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), the Daubert decision supplied courts with a new set of standards to make a preliminary assessment of whether an expert’s scientific testimony is based on reasoning or methodology that is scientifically valid and can properly be applied to the facts at issue.

When a bank goes into receivership, bank executives should not assume that any losses the bank itself — or its shareholders — sustains will be the sole losses. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), acting as the receiver of the First Community Bank, sued former officers of the Bank for close to $15 million in federal court. Known for decades as the First State Bank of Taos, the failing First Community Bank entered receivership on January 28, 2011; the FDIC was appointed as receiver.

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico decided in Williams v. Board of Regents of University of New Mexico, et. al. (No. CIV 13-0479 JB/WPL 2014) to retain jurisdiction of a case brought by the parents and conservator of a mentally-ill young man whose condition deteriorated after he was admitted to various hospitals and institutions owned or controlled by the defendants sued in this action. For a period of four months from January to April 2011, the young man was transferred to several facilities against the wishes of his conservator and his parents; furthermore, he was not given the psychotropic medicine which he was prescribed and did not receive appropriate treatment for his particular condition. At the end of the four-month period, he was ultimately diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder, a psychotic disorder and traumatic brain injury.  He no longer could “engage in meaningful conversations with his mother”and “remained in a volatile mental state”in which he was “periodically dangerous to himself and to others.”