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Show Comece lawsyitt dismissed by Rick Brough A federal court judge has dismissed a $10 million antitrust lawsuit brought against the Park City Municipal Corp., the Park City Ski Area and the Park City Village project by developer Monty Mon-ty Gibson. In the 1981 suit, Gibson had charged that the defendants conspired to stop his Cornice hotel project, at the base of the Park City Ski Area, because it was a competitive threat. Among those named in the suit were Nick Badami, chairman of the Greater Park City Company (the ski area); Jack Davis, the original developer of the Park City Village project; City Manager Arlene Loble, City Planning Director Bill Ligety and Chief Building Official Ron Ivie. But the judgment handed down by U.S. District Court Judge David Winder Wind-er said that the court was unable to find any evidence to infer the existence of a conspiracy against Gibson. Winder Wind-er dismissed the case on "summary judgment," saying no issues of fact existed to take the case to a jury trial. Gibson's lawyer, Daniel Shulman of Minneapolis, told the Record Tuesday that he will appeal the decision. "Basically, he (Winder) looked at all the evidence and decided it should be viewed the way the defendants looked at it, and not the way we looked at it," Shulman said. He added he was astonished the judge wrote such a long opinion, only to conclude there were no disputed facts. But City Manager Arlene Loble told the Record that the Gibson suit was ludicrous. "We're thrilled," she said about the decision. "They (Gibson's attorneys) never showed we hnd a motive to act in a conspiracy." Most of Winder's opinion was taken up with the history of the Cornice project and Park City Village, which Gibson said was favored over his development. Both projects began in late 1979. The document traced the city's study and on-going review of Park City Village, and its approvals. The opinion also closely detailed the city's review process of the Cornice. It followed the Cornice's construction, next to the Village site, Gibson's legal interaction with the defendants, and several incidents where Gibson changed or adjusted his plans for the project. In his conclusion, Winder responded to several allegations made in Gibson's Gib-son's suit: Item: Gibson charged that city codes were applied to the Cornice building in a discriminatory manner, as to favor the Park Village project. For instance, setbacks for underground un-derground parking were enforced against his building. The Court replied: Underground setbacks were enlorced against the Village, too. And the city's Board of Adjustments, with Bill Ligety's approval, ap-proval, gave Gibson a variance on his setbacks. Item: The Village received more favorable height allowances than the Cornice project. The Court: The Village may have received a variance in height. But so did Gibson, in a 1980 Board of Adjustments Adjust-ments decision. Item: The city not only required him to build enough parking spaces to satisfy the Land Code, but unfairly attempted at-tempted to enforce an agreement between be-tween Gibson and Greater Park City which called for the Cornice to replace parking spaces it built over. Thus, the city required him to build 62 spaces. The Court: Evidence shows the city approved the Cornice conditional use Cornice to A9 I (CnMitniffiiin(Bdl ffirqpmm . . . ! Cornice from A1 permit with 32 spaces, and pointedly did not consider the private agreement, agree-ment, on advice from its attorney. It was Gibson who, on three instances, indicated an intention to build more than 60 spaces. Item: The transit center for the Village was placed so as to divert pedestrians away from Gibson's Cornice. Cor-nice. The Court: Evidence shows the proposal for the center and its location was derived from a traffic study by Wayne Van Wagoner. Item : Defendants Greater Park City and the Village harassed the Cornice construction crews. The Court: Extensive evidence shows the defendants cooperated extensively ex-tensively with Gibson. They only took action against him when he undertook construction activity on Greater Park City property without permission or in violation of an agreement with the defendants. Item : The city interfered with Cornice Cor-nice construction by issuing stop work orders in the late summer of 1981. The Court: Evidence shows that construction was proceeding in a way that violated the building plans approved ap-proved by the city. Item: In separate conversations, Gibson was pressured by executives for Greater Park City Nick Badami and Wayne Matthews that Gibson's parking problems with the city would be relieved if he eliminated his planned plan-ned commercial spaces. The Court: Evidence shows that Badami made a planning suggestion, on behalf of Greater Park City only. He said the company would support more parking space for Gibson if the Cornice supplied additional bedrooms to the ski area. Matthews suggested eliminating commercial space because it would decrease parking requirements for the Cornice under the Land Code. Item: In spring, 1981, shortly after master plan approval was given to Park City Village, Loble addressed a memo to the planning and finance departments. It concerned billing the Village for consulting work the city had solicited on that project. Loble's note said the Village should get its bill "before they forget how grateful they are." Gibson said this was an admission ad-mission the city had bestowed special favors on the Village. The Court: Loble's note may suggest favoritism by itself, but in context no such inference can be drawn from it. Item: In a statement attributed to him, Jack Davis said he did not want the Cornice to be the center of the Village project. Plaintiff said this showed Davis wanted to interfere with the Cornice. The Court: At most, this indicates Davis didn't want to change his project in a way that the Cornice would then be the focus. Shulman said the judgment did not show, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there were no issues of fact. In the past, he noted, courts have sparingly handed down summary judgment in anti-trust cases. One reason, he said, is that available evidence is in the defendants' hands and subject to hostile witnesses. However, noted Winder's opinion, summary judgments can be handed down if the court is convinced no questions of fact exist. The defendants have 10 days from the judgment date to submit a proposed final judgment. After that, said Shulman, plaintiffs have 30 days to submit an appeal. The appeal will be made to the Tenth Circuit Court in Denver, he said. |
