Park City, UT – Utah Third District Court Judge Ryan Harris issued a brief two-page ruling on Tuesday, indicating that Talisker Corp. attorneys won’t have access to a number of Powdr Corp. emails when depositions in a lawsuit for the lease of land for Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR) get underway today.

Powdr asserted attorney-client privilege regarding the 21 emails exchanged on the final weekend of April 2011 when the long-term lease for 2,800 acres of the ski resort’s 3,300 total acres was expiring.  Talisker attorneys argued that the emails between Powdr Corp. executives and their attorneys fell under the crime-fraud exception to the Utah Rules of Evidence and should be disclosed, because they believed that the communication was part of an intentional effort to deceive Talisker by backdating their letter to renew the lease.

On Friday, Harris ordered Powdr to turn over the emails by Monday for his review. On Tuesday, Harris ruled that although Powdr’s backdating of its May 2, 2011 letter to April 29, 2011 was indicative of an intention to deceive, the emails between Powdr officials and their attorneys don’t reflect that, “and that none of the emails fall within the so-called ‘crime-fraud exception’ to the attorney-client privilege.”

“Stated another way,” Harris ruled, “the content of the emails is not indicative of any intent on the part of the Park City parties to seek or obtain legal advice.”

The pending litigation, first filed by Park City Mountain Resort against Talisker in March 2012 to enforce the lease, has evolved into a hostile takeover attempt of sorts of Park City Mountain Resort by Vail Resorts, which now operates Talisker’s nearby Canyons Resort in Park City. However, with Powdr owning the base area land and Talisker owning the rest of the ski resort land, it would be difficult, if not impossible for one side to run the resort without some sort of compromise or verdict to compel the other side’s cooperation.

Depositions in the case are set to get underway today, beginning with PCMR general manager Jenni Smith.