A bench trial has been scheduled for this week in federal court in Erie in the lawsuit by Seneca Resources against Highland Township.
The matter is scheduled for a status conference at 10:30 a.m. Thursday before United States Magistrate Judge Susan Paradise Baxter, with a bench trial immediately following.
Two counts remain in the suit —one regarding the alleged impermissible exercise of police power by Highland Township’s voter-adopted home rule charter; and an alleged violation of procedural due process for corporations.
The saga over oil and gas rights in Highland Township has been ongoing for several years. In 2013, at the urging of Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, the township enacted a community bill of rights. The bill was an effort to stop Seneca Resources from placing an injection well within a half mile of the township’s water source.
Seneca filed a federal lawsuit, and Highland Township supervisors rescinded the bill of rights. A stipulation and consent decree was filed in federal court at the time, agreeing, in essence, that Seneca would drop the lawsuit if the bill was rescinded.
A government study commission was formed in the township, and eventually opted to become a home rule community. Again with the help of CELDF, the commission drafted a home rule charter, adopting many of the same provisions that were objected to in the community bill of rights.
Voters in Highland Township approved a resolution to adopt the home rule charter. And Seneca filed suit again, challenging the provisions of the charter which purported to ban injection wells within the township. Township officials acknowledged in this suit that the portions of the charter dealing with oil and gas were illegal, but told the federal judge they could not repeal it, as it was voted in by referendum.
In October, Baxter granted in part a motion for summary judgment in the case, declaring invalid the portions of the home rule charter purporting to legislate oil and gas drilling within the township.
Two counts of the original suit remain to be litigated.
Seneca has alleged the home rule charter would give township citizens the police power to enforce the charter, which is prohibited by law. And the second, the due process portion of the suit, alleged that the home rule charter prohibits a corporation from suing to uphold its rights.
