Defendants in a lawsuit over beach access on St. Croix have filed a motion for sanctions against the attorney for the plaintiffs, alleging that he failed to properly investigate his clients’ claims before filing the complaint that their attorney alleges is frivolous, misstates the law and “blatantly race-baits” his clients.
The lawsuit, filed by attorney Russell B. Pate on behalf of 18 St. Croix residents on June 13 in V.I. Superior Court, was subsequently removed by the defendants to V.I. District Court on July 9 based upon “complete diversity” and because the amount in controversy exceeds $75,000. Pate voluntarily dismissed the claim without prejudice — meaning it may be brought again — on Aug. 8 and said he intends to take the matter back to Superior Court as 18 separate cases and limit individual damages to less than $75,000 “so that future removal will not be an issue.”
The residents who brought the complaint claim property owners Paul E. and Catherine Lippman, who live part of the time in Maine, and their son Matthew Lippman, who lives on St. Croix, made accessing the Estate Prosperity beach just north of Frederiksted much more difficult on June 1 by placing 30 or so boulders on the traditional path and attempting to create a new path, which went up and down an uneven gut. The large stones also blocked the road shoulder where cars traditionally parked, according to the suit that claims a violation of the territory’s Open Shorelines Act.
One of the plaintiffs, Arthur Petersen, told the Source in June that some of the stones were protruding out into the road, far beyond the traditional eight- or 10-foot easement from a roadway. He said he was shocked by the boulders restricting access to the beach just past Mahogany Road on Emancipation Drive, which he’d visited for more than 60 years and that his family had accessed without trouble for a century or more.
“From the time I was a kid, my aunt used to carry me there,” he said. “We all want to know what is all this about because it don’t make no sense.”
Open beach access was assured to all after the 1878 Fireburn uprising and became statutory and common law under the Danish government of the time. When the United States bought the territory and took possession in 1917, that law continued under the Treaty Sale Agreement. Attempts to privatize beaches and restrict access in the 1950s and 1960s led to the Open Shorelines Act of 1971, signed into law by the first locally elected Virgin Islands governor, Melvin Evans, according to the suit, which offered a graphic history of the disenfranchisement of Virgin Islanders during slavery.
The area in question is within 50 feet of the low-tide mark, meaning it should be considered open to public use, the suit claimed. By blocking the flattest, easiest route to the sea, the boulders disproportionately harm very young and very old beachgoers, it said.
However, according to the motion for sanctions filed in V.I. District Court on Thursday by the Lippman’s attorney Kevin A. Rames, the complaint was mooted five days before it was filed because the plaintiffs brought in a backhoe to move the boulders, thus taking the law into their own hands before the court could consider the case.
Moreover, it was wrong to claim a violation of the Open Shorelines Act because it “plainly provides that the lawful shoreline boundaries extend from the shoreline to the start of natural vegetation — not the roadside area upon which the stones were placed,” the motion states.
In an Aug. 21 email included as an exhibit to his motion, Rames told Pate that the complaint “misstates the law and the facts, and blatantly race-baits my clients, drawing parallels between their actions, which were legal under applicable law but erroneously executed under certain regulatory processes at DPNR, and the vicious, exploitative, racist enslavers and torturers who heaped trauma upon my people for a score of generations. To attempt to leverage the most sordid episodes in our family history in order to cast dirt on innocent people is both unprecedented in my experience at the bar and shocking to see in a legal document filed in the Superior Court.”
Rames, whose family goes back many generations on St. Croix, told Pate that if he files 18 separate cases in Superior Court, the Lippmans will move to consolidate them and again remove them to federal court.
“However, the Lippmans will not allow the cases to be heard by the Superior Court as matters of first impression. Instead, the Lippmans will supplement the record by filing a Motion for Sanctions against you in federal court under FRCP Rule 11 based upon the foregoing facts, most particularly on the basis that Plaintiffs violated criminal law by engaging in unlawful self-help, thereby mooting their ‘claim’ before you filed their Complaint,” Rames wrote.
“This matter can, instead, end here. Amend the Notice under FRCP Rule 41(a) to a dismissal with prejudice before noon on Thursday. In that way, we can close the books on this matter without further ado and put this unfortunate dispute firmly and permanently to bed,” he told Pate.
Pate declined to amend his notice of dismissal to “with prejudice” — meaning it cannot be brought again — and on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the call for sanctions, noting the complaint was already voluntarily dismissed so the court no longer has jurisdiction.
“Second, the sanction motion is moot because the Complaint was already ‘withdrawn’ when it was dismissed on August 8, 2024. Third, procedurally, this motion must be denied, as the Defendants failed to follow the mandatory Rule 11(c)(2) safe harbor provisions,” which provide that an attorney be given 21-days’ notice of such action to remedy the situation. Instead, Pate said he was given three hours.
“This Rich versus the Poor tactic is as old as time. For the Rich, the Poor is the vast majority of society’s vulnerable and powerless. Finding a champion to fight for them is few and far between. So when an attorney, labor leader or community activist fights for the People — the Rich and Powerful look for any way to silence, pressure, hound and stress that champion of the People. This motion for sanctions is an intimidation tactic with zero merit,” Pate said in an emailed statement when contacted for comment.
“Attorney Rames’ clients are some of the most powerful and largest corporations in the world, like Philip Morris Tobacco Company, Shell Oil Corporation and Lockheed Martin Marietta — 100+ billion-dollar companies; some which have done great harm,” said Pate, who is representing the plaintiffs pro bono.
“That I am championing open beach access for normal, regular Virgin Islanders, from grandparents to great-grandchildren — who do not own beach mansions, mega-yachts, or private planes — is frightening to those of Power who want to privatize beaches all to themselves,” he said.
Rames declined to comment when contacted Monday, noting his motions contain all the pertinent information.
