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Judge to Range: Newspaper reporters, editor covered by state Shield Law

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Washington County President Judge Katherine B. Emery ruled Range Resources is not entitled to subpoena staff members of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in an attempt to discover when and how they learned of sealed court records in a long-running civil case.

In ordering the quashing of subpoenas, the judge wrote an opinion and order last Friday in a 2012 case brought by Stacey Haney, individually and on behalf of her two daughters; Beth, John and Ashley Voyles; and Loren and Grace Kiskadden against Range over what the Amwell Township residents claimed was a leaking liner that contaminated groundwater and soil at the Yeager impoundment.

The case was settled and discontinued in September of last year, and documents were sealed from public view.

According to the judge’s decision, Range sought information from two newspaper reporters and an editor to “obtain information specifically about when and how the Post-Gazette learned of the settlement… to support Range’s contention that the Post-Gazette was working in concert with or on the behest of Stacey Haney.”

Emery also found the Pennsylvania Shield Law for news media protects the Post-Gazette from revealing information that could lead to the disclosure of its sources.

“Range wants the information to establish Stacey Haney or her agents are the source that provided the Post-Gazette with this information,” the judge wrote. “While that information may be discoverable under a potential action against plaintiff Haney for violating terms of the settlement, it is not germane to this case.”

In showing how widely the impoundment story was covered, the judge noted the case had been chronicled in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America,” by journalist Eliza Griswold on the impact fracking had on the Haney family of Amity.

Haney, a single mother, came to believe that fracking harmed the health of her family and their animals.

Although the Post-Gazette sought to have Range pay its attorney’s fees, the judge declined to view Range’s legal position as harassment.

“Although the court ultimately did not accept the position of Range, in no way did the court find it baseless or misleading,” Emery wrote, and scheduled a hearing on the Post-Gazette’s petition to intervene in the impoundment case for later this month.

A spokesman for Range said the corporation does not intend to appeal Emery’s ruling.

A motion filed by the Post-Gazette in Washington County Court in February to unseal several motions in the natural gas-drilling lawsuit indicates that state Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s office sent letters to attorneys stating his office has “assumed jurisdiction over several criminal investigations involving environmental crimes in Washington County.”

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