Twenty-five years of legal wrangling, battling in the courts, and failed settlement talks is finally over between the resort municipality and the Saxton family.
The municipality announced today that the 1987 lawsuit over the expropriation of the Rainbow Park lands, once privately held by the Saxton family, is now over.
"We've had no other piece of litigation lying around for this long," said a pleased Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden.
The saga ended this week after the Saxton's abandoned plans to appeal a Supreme Court ruling in May that awarded the family $1.5 million in unpaid interest, bringing the total cost paid for the 44 hectares of land to $2.4 million. They had argued for a minimum interest payment of almost $4.5 million.
In answer to that appeal, the municipality filed a cross appeal, sending the message it was prepared to continue the fight.
"You only have 30 days after a judgment comes down to file your notice of appeal," said the mayor, who is also a lawyer.
"Sometimes that's just done to buy some time ... they needed time to closely review the judgment, they needed time to get instructions.
"We also filed a cross appeal. That gave the message that there was going to be further battle from both sides. And so, for whatever reason they were able to come to the conclusion that there really was no point in appealing and so they withdrew their appeal, we withdrew our cross appeal. And that's the end of it finally."
More to come.
