The JCM Farming Inc. compound near Thermal is at the center of a no-fly controversy. / File photo
Editor's Note: This story first ran on Wednesday, June 22, 2011.
A settlement conference in a lawsuit between a Coachella Valley olive farmer and local balloonists has been delayed until August, a Riverside County judge decided Tuesday.
JCM Farming Inc. sued 15 Coachella Valley balloonists and ballooning companies in March 2009, alleging they violated JCM's property rights and put its workers in peril by flying over the farm's walled compound near Jackson Street and Avenue 54.
The postponed hearing could pave the way for the farm to be inspected by an officer of the court.
Defense attorneys, in a bid to bolster their case, are seeking to have the farm inspected.
But just a day before a scheduled June 3 visit, attorneys for JCM asked the judge to prohibit such a visit, according to court records.
Superior Court Judge Randall D. White had been scheduled to decide whether to allow the inspection on July 29.
But, because that date falls after a previously scheduled July 15 settlement conference, White rescheduled the hearing for Aug. 19.
A July 7 hearing date remains on the court calendar. White is expected to rule on three other requests from JCM — whether to issue a gag order to prevent attorneys from speaking with the news media, move the case out of Riverside County, and seal court records.
JCM wants flights over the farm banned, and balloons at altitudes no less than 1,000 feet in an area from Avenue 52 south to Avenue 56 and from Monroe Street east to Calhoun Street.
The restrictions have effectively ceased all ballooning in the Coachella Valley, forcing companies out of business, according to attorneys for the defendants.
Robert Gilliland, who represents Fantasy Balloon Flights, one of two companies still fighting the lawsuit, has said defendants should be allowed an inspection to determine what threat balloonists create at the complex, which is shrouded in secrecy.
“We should absolutely be entitled to see what's going on in the compound and how it supports their damages,” he said previously. “They are claiming they have workers falling out of trees when a balloon is flying overhead, but what happens when a jet airplane flies overhead? Are (workers) properly harnessed to ladders? And I've never heard of a balloon striking someone on the ground and injuring them.”
In JCM's motion to block the inspection, attorney Andrew Rauch said that any check into the compound violates privacy rights of the owners, is over- broad and not reasonably aimed at leading to the discovery of admissible evidence.
“These issues in this case do not involve the private affairs of the plaintiff in this action,” Rauch wrote. “Rather, the issues are strictly confined to the violation of property boundaries of the plaintiff's property and the violation of plaintiff's privacy rights.”
JCM Farming's 80-acre olive field southwest of Indio is surrounded by a 24-foot-high, 4-foot-thick security wall. Turret-like structures, possibly ornamental, sit at the corners of the plot, and signs warn intruders of an armed response.
“Their compound is more fortified than Osama bin Laden's,” Gilliland said earlier. “What are they doing on the JCM compound?”
Gilliland declined comment on the judge putting off the hearing Tuesday.
Rauch, who has denied claims the farm owners want to push the industry out of the Coachella Valley, wrote that the inspection would further an alleged assault on the company through the news media by the defendants' attorneys.
“Plaintiff further asserts that the inspection demand is part of an unlawful public vilification campaign being waged against it by the defendant,” Rauch said.
Rauch has said the company is based in Solana Beach but owns farms across the state.
The other remaining defendant in the lawsuit is Magical Adventures Inc., according to court records.
A preliminary trial date of Nov. 28 has been set.
