(Written by kencraw)

In my last update, on July 25th, I noted that the appeal had been filed in the case and that triggered an automatic 20-day extension on the appeal, extending it to August 18th from July 29th. Yesterday we got our first answer back from the appeals process:

Appeal denied!

But wait… before you go jumping in the streets to find the nearest watering hole, it’s not what you think, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. Here’s the key text from the ruling:

Although one of the three challenged rulings is denominated a “Judgment,” it is clear from the record that there is no final determination of the rights of the parties.

The trial court authorized a supplemental return notwithstanding its conclusion that the University’s June 27, 2008 response demonstrated that it did not intend to pursue the three alterations. The 30-day period within which to file the supplemental return does not expire until August 21, 2008, and appellants’ Motion to Vacate Judgment and For New Trial also remains pending in the trial court.

In this case, however, the companion Judgment never took effect, and, hence, the preliminary injunction is not yet dissolved. Rather, it remains in place, subject to future modification by the trial court, as appropriate.

In other words, Judge Miller’s case is not yet over and the appellate court will not hear an appeal until Judge Miller finalizes her rulings. And just for fun, he’s ruling that the injunction is in place, so don’t nobody go cutting down no trees!

So what does this mean?

Frankly, it means more delays. It means that at a minimum we’re looking at another extension, as best I can tell, until September 10th, based on the logic that if the appellate court is correct and the trial court case can’t expire before August 21st, then the earliest the original injunction could be dissolved is August 21st and then tack on another 20 days for the “automatic extension” for Volker and company filing another appeal now that the case is wrapped up.

But all of the above assumes that Judge Miller does whatever it is she needs to do so that she clears up the problems that the appellate judge is complaining about. That likely means that the hearing originally scheduled for August 12th and now rescheduled for August 25th is now more important than ever… probably. I suspect that Judge Miller is not going to schedule another hearing between now and then and I doubt she’ll clear up the appellate court’s concern without another hearing. The worst case scenario is that she schedules another hearing for this stuff and because of how things go, that won’t happen until early September. Give her a few days to wrap everything up and make a FINAL ruling and tack on another 20 days and we’re looking at the beginning of October before the run on chainsaws down at Home Depot starts.

So it looks like the 20 of you who voted for a late August tree cutting party in the poll are going to be disappointed and the 19 of you who voted for during the season or later are looking pretty smart right now.

More info to come…