When the trial court ruled against the AG's office, we encouraged them to appeal, but unfortunately
the chances of a successful appeal under the federal Natural Gas Act were low.
Bearing in mind that
appeals are from the evidence and the judgment, not the reasons — assuming the reasons are an adequate explanation
of the judge's analysis — those
of you who are litigators (and care to look at what the judge wrote) should look at paras. 54, 60 - 64, 66,
of the Smith reasons and ask yourself this question: assuming the evidence is as the judge wrote, is there a snowflake's
chance in a very warm place
of a
successful appeal by either side?