The Daily Sentinel (Grand Junction): It’s three strikes out for SGI Interests in its retaliatory attempt to punish a Delta County resident for exercising his free-speech rights.

The Texas oil and gas company lost another attempt Thursday to keep alive its lawsuit against Paonia resident Pete Kolbenschlag, who not only had the original civil case against him dismissed as frivolous and vexatious by a Delta County District Court two years ago, but also saw a three-judge panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals last month uphold that lower court decision.

On Thursday, that same appellate court denied an SGI Interests petition to rehear the case by the full court. Not only that, but the appeals court also changed its June ruling in SGI Interests v. Kolbenschlag from an unpublished opinion to a published one, giving it more heft as legal precedent.

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