Here's a media report from the Associated Press about the hearing.
Judge weighs dumping Alcoa lawsuit
August 27, 2015
A federal judge questioned Thursday whether North Carolina was acting like a “banana republic” with its lawsuit challenging whether Alcoa Inc. owns the riverbed under Yadkin River dams it has operated for as long as a century.
A federal judge questioned Thursday whether North Carolina was acting like a “banana republic” with its lawsuit challenging whether Alcoa Inc. owns the riverbed under Yadkin River dams it has operated for as long as a century.
U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle quizzed lawyers for the state and the aluminum giant in court for an hour as he considered whether to dismiss the case. The lawsuit filed in 2013 challenges whether Alcoa holds clear title to the riverbed that allowed it to build the four dams and perhaps one day sell them.
Boyle asked state attorney Donald Teeter whether the lawsuit sought to punish Alcoa for closing its Stanly County aluminum smelter in 2007 where hundreds of people once worked.
“Why isn’t this like some banana republic that confiscates property?” Boyle said. “This is really a thinly veiled power grab.”
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