Activist raises specter of lawsuit at L.A.’s Maersk terminal
A Los Angeles area activist has filed an appeal of an August federal decision rejecting his claim that the Port of Los Angeles misappropriated more than $1 billion in helping to develop what is now the APM terminal in the nation’s largest port, the Los Angeles Times reported over the weekend.
Stanley Moser, of Rancho Palos Verdes, a small city near the port, is arguing that the port used federal funds and harbor revenue to build an island on reclaimed land that was supposed to be dedicated to energy uses and instead wound up as Pier 400, the largest container terminal in North America.
The port argued that it had initially intended to develop the project as an energy complex, but that not enough tenants emerged to make it financially viable. The case was thrown out because Moser did not have proper legal representation after his attorney bowed out of the case in February 2005.
Because federal funds were allocated to the terminal project, the U.S. government has a right to recover damages should they be awarded in Mosler’s case, but the Justice Department has yet to intervene, the newspaper reported.