By Hannah Grover
The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled on Monday that a lawsuit brought against Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard was filed in the wrong court.
Blanchard Corona Ranch filed the lawsuit in the Lincoln County district court after Garcia Richard leased state land that overlapped with the ranch’s grazing leases to two wind energy projects.
The Supreme Court found that the suit should have been filed in Santa Fe County, because it was challenging the actions of a state official, or in Bernalillo County, which is where the ranch owners’ live.
Garcia Richard appealed the case to the state Supreme Court, arguing that state laws require suits against state officers to be “brought in the court of the county in which their offices are located, at the capital or in the county where a plaintiff, or any one of them in the case there is more than one, resides.”
Blanchard Corona Ranch, on the other hand, argued that the Lincoln County venue was the appropriate location because the lands in question are located within Lincoln County.
The state Supreme Court ruled that Blanchard Corona Ranch is not “seeking to implicate an interest in lands as its object,” which is why the state statute Garcia Richard’s team highlighted applied.
The court documents state that Blanchard Corona Ranch instead sought to “vindicate Blanchard’s existing leasehold interest by challenging the procedures that the Commissioner followed to enter into the wind energy leases that overlap with the Agricultural Lease.”
The Supreme Court remanded the case to the lower court and instructed the district court to reject it on the grounds of improper venue.