The Warren County Board of Chosen Freeholders and nine property owners who are co-plaintiffs have filed legal papers asking a judge to reconsider his Jan. 18, 2008 decision that dismissed their lawsuit challenging the state’s Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act.

The Warren freeholders also authorized appealing the case if Superior Court Judge Paul Innes denies the motion to reconsider his previous decision, said attorney Stephen H. Shaw of the firm Hueston McNulty, P.C., who is Warren County’s special counsel on the Highlands litigation.

Legal papers filed by Shaw and John M. Zaiter, the attorney representing the nine property owners from Warren, Morris and Hunterdon counties who have been adversely affected by the Highlands Act, also seek leave to file an Amended Pleading alleging a federal cause of action, so that the plaintiffs can seek to have the U.S. Supreme Court review the case.

“The right to engage in farming as a livelihood and as a way of life is a fundamental right protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article One of the New Jersey Constitution.  By stripping seventy-five percent (75%) of the equity from their lands, the State of New Jersey through the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act is depriving farmers in the preservation area of this right,” the attorneys wrote in a letter brief to Judge Innes.

            The preservation area is a part of the Highlands where development is severely restricted. The County and the landowners assert that these restrictions devalue the land without proper compensation.