Among the endless questions facing cannabis growers — or at least those who’ve actually made it through the regulatory tangle — is what rights they have to compensation if their product is seized and destroyed?
And as with many things in this industry in flux, the answer is still being defined in the courts and in the legislature. And in that evolving case law Mendocino County cannabis grower Andres Rondon has already struck out twice so far in state court, and now faces possible dismissal of his federal case.
Back in 2018 Rondon’s Potter Valley-based cannabis business, Skunkworx, was raided by Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office deputies. In 2019 he filed a lawsuit in Mendocino Superior Court alleging that, as a legal grower, his product had been improperly seized and destroyed. Then, when he lost the case in Superior Court and on appeal, he filed a new civil rights case in federal court, making the same claims. The federal civil rights violation lawsuit seeks $800,000 in damages.
Now lawyers for the County of Mendocino are seeking to have the federal lawsuit dismissed, on the premise that though Cannabis is locally legal, it remains federally illegal, and because the case has already been tried. To the legality of the cannabis in question, a California Public Records Act request to the County shows that Rondon filed for a cannabis growing permit in July 2017, prior to the raid, and withdrew the application in December 2019.
Read more at mendovoice.com