EAST PALESTINE — After being denied more time by federal Judge Benita Pearson to appeal an $850,000 supersedes bond, residents fighting last year’s $600 million settlement with Norfolk Southern turned to the Sixth District Court of Appeals to reconsider an earlier motion to eliminate the bond all together.

Attorney David Graham, who represents Rev. Joseph Sheely, Zsuzsa Troyan, Tamara Freeze, Sharon Lynch and Carly Tunno, asked the Sixth Circuit to revisit its March 21 ruling in which the appellants did not ask for a review of reduction in the appeal bond but rather a stay of it on Jan. 19. Graham admitted mistakenly submitting the motion as a stay by accidentally choosing the wrong dropdown box on PACER’s (the software used to file motions electronically) “menu of limited options.”

The Sixth Circuit later denied the motion due to a “lack of jurisdiction” as the filing error left the Sixth Circuit’s panel with no choice but to rule on the motion as a stay. The Court of Appeals did leave the appealing residents a lifeline, writing that they “could still obtain review of the bond order by filing a direct appeal from that order.”

In the appellants’ latest motion, filed on Friday, Graham argued the Sixth Circuit does indeed have jurisdiction over the appeal bond.

“A Court of Appeals has ample authority to protect its appellate jurisdiction from defeasance by a lower court,” Graham wrote.

He cited a Sixth Circuit decision in Swift & Company vs. Kortrecht, that “previously recognized that, once acquiring jurisdiction of an appeal on the merits, it also has jurisdiction to address issues relating to an appeal bond.”

Graham also argued that Pearson’s denial of additional time made moot the Sixth Circuit reasoning that no harm occurred by denying the bond stay.

“A related problem is this Court’s assertion that appellants “cannot show irreparable harm, in part because they could still obtain review of the bond order by filing a direct appeal from that order,” he wrote. “Appellants duly moved for just such an extension the same day this Court’s March 21, 2025 order was entered –but that was 31 days after expiration of the original 30-day appeal period.”

Graham addressed the inflammatory language used in earlier court documents for which the Sixth Circuit took him to task for in the ruling denying a stay. Graham wrote that he “apologizes for any affront to principles of civility or any perceived disrespect to the legal system” but accused Pearson of “casting the first stone” by calling him NEWS”cowardly” for not seating himself inside the bar during the final hearing and for engaging in ex parte communications with appellees (those class members not appealing) regarding the appeal.

Graham ultimately argued that the Sixth Circuit not only has the power to stay the bond but to squash it. He no longer wants a stay, which he calls “temporary” fix but rather a permanent remedy to the roadblock he maintains such a large bond requirement presents to his clients.

“Reconsideration should be granted, and on reconsideration the appeal bond ordered by the district court should be entirely eliminated, or reduced to at most a few hundred dollars in reasonably estimated taxable costs,” he wrote.

The appeal process has paused direct payments of up to $70,000 per household for property damages suffered by those who lived within 20 miles of the 2023 train derailment and chemical spill.