BECKLEY, W.Va. – The Mass Litigation Panel will hold a Status and Scheduling Conference in the Flood Litigation cases on October 7, 2008, at the Raleigh County Courthouse. It will be the first time the six circuit judges on the Panel will sit as a full panel to hear a matter.

On September 4, 2008, the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia ordered that In re: Flood Litigation Coal River Watershed, and In re: Flood Litigation Upper Guyandotte River Watershed Subwatershed 2a be remanded to the Raleigh County Circuit Court and transferred to the Mass Litigation Panel for further proceedings by current members of the Panel.

On September 17, 2008, the Supreme Court ordered that the Flood Damage cases previously transferred to the Circuit Court of Raleigh County be reassigned to the current members of the Panel.

The Chairman of the Panel is Circuit Judge Alan D. Moats of the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, Barbour and Taylor Counties. The other members of the Panel are Tenth Judicial Circuit Judge John A. Hutchison of Raleigh County; Eighth Judicial Circuit Judge Booker T. Stephens of McDowell County; Ninth Judicial Circuit Judge Derek Swope of Mercer County; 25^th Judicial Circuit Judge Jay M. Hoke of Boone and Lincoln Counties; and First Judicial Circuit Judge James P. Mazzone of Brooke, Hancock, and Ohio Counties.

The Status and Scheduling Conference will be held at 10 a.m. in the Courtroom of Tenth Judicial Circuit Judge Robert A. Burnside, Jr. All counsel of record and self-represented parties in all watersheds are required to attend.

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