JetAway, JCP set to appeal

MONTROSE — Two of three parties in increasingly contentious airport litigation filed notice of intent to appeal a June 30 trial ruling.

JetAway Aviation and its business rival, Jet Center Partners, both filed notices Nov. 26 concerning the ruling and other issues.

Montrose County has already appealed portions of the June 30 decision concerning maintenance services JetAway was allowed to perform and argues it was entitled to more than the dollar awarded for attorneys’ fees.

Montrose County operates Montrose Regional Airport. It privatized fixed-base operator, or FBO, services in 2005, and awarded the contract for those services to Jet Center Partners (Black Canyon Jet Center).

JetAway, which operated off-airport under a through-the-fence agreement, sued. Claims and counterclaims were consolidated into one case, heard in May. On June 30, the judge ordered JetAway’s land lease terminated, but said it could call itself an FBO, although it could not sell fuel. JetAway was ordered to apply for an access permit. It has since disputed what the county wants to charge for that.

Under a separate temporary restraining order granted last month, the county, citing safety concerns, revoked JetAway’s airport access for 30 days.

JetAway’s Nov. 26 notice took issue with a 2007 order in contempt proceedings brought by JCP; the June 30 trial order and two subsequent orders concerning attorneys fees awarded to JCP.

Jet Center Partners’ cross-appeal says the $13,000 in attorneys fees awarded to it in the 2007 contempt proceedings were insufficient. It also questioned whether the trial court made a mistake when it defined the scope of services JetAway is able to offer off-airport.

Jet Center Partners saw its claims of injury under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act denied by the June 30 ruling. In its cross-appeal, JCP asks the appeals court to determine whether the trial court erred in that decision.

Jet Center Partners took JetAway to court last year, alleging JetAway engaged in advertising specifically prohibited by court order. District Court Judge James Schum found sufficient cause to grant JCP’s contempt complaint.

In his June 30 trial ruling, Schum rejected JCP’s argument that JetAway had engaged in deceptive or unfair trade practice that injured JCP, but found in JCP’s favor concerning unfair competition under the consumer protection act.

JetAway’s recent filing questioned whether the ruling concerning unfair competition was in error “when the sole basis for JCP’s common law unfair competition claim is the allegation that JetAway intentionally deceived the public through false advertising practices and in light of the trial court’s finding that JCP proved no damages.”

JetAway also questioned the finding that JCP was entitled to injunctive relief in the first place and whether the court had the right to enjoin advertisements or dictate what language ads could contain.

The company also contends the trial court might have erred in terminating JetAway’s land lease and in its conclusion that certain services are subject to the county’s minimum standards regardless whether they are conducted on- or off-airport.

JetAway took issue with how the trial court interpreted the off-airport agreement and the evidence it admitted in order to do so.

The company reiterated complaints it’s also made in pending federal antitrust and Federal Aviation Administration filings: that JCP and the county were conspiring to deprive it of its right to do business.

“The claims brought by (the county) against JetAway seek to rewrite history and the parties’ contractual agreement,” the Nov. 26 filing read. JetAway says at the time its through-the-fence agreement was brokered, only the county had the right to sell aviation fuel.

“Since privatizing the (FBO) function and awarding the franchise to JCP at the end of 2005, the county has sought to impermissibly restrict, if not shut down, JetAway’s business,” the document read.

Schum’s recent ruling that granted the county a new restraining order on safety violations, said the county was “really bending over backwards to keep JetAway in business.”

No date on the parties’ appeals have been set; each side must file a brief concerning the other parties’ notices.