Extracting itself from lawsuits

Court documents show Oconee County in the process of extracting itself from a pair of aeronautics-related lawsuits. At the Clerk of Court’s office, a formal order is anticipated to spell out the dismissal of the case of a North Carolina pilot who sued, alleging deer hit his Piper Mirage as it started to take-off from an Oconee Regional Airport runway. In another case, attorneys have filed a stipulation of dismissal in part of a three-party lawsuit that arose when contractor Plateau Excavation was ordered to temporarily stop work on a project to extend the Oconee airport runway. Attorneys for two other parties, Oconee County and the consultant engineering company Talbert and Bright, have agreed to drop claims and counterclaims between those two parties. Should that stipulation to dismiss go through, left standing would be Plateau’s claim against the county for nearly $2 million.