Oregon’s Clatsop County has dropped out of a class-action lawsuit involving more than a dozen counties seeking $1.4 billion from the state over logging harvests on state-managed lands.

The Daily Astorian newspaper reported that the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners voted Wednesday to withdraw from the suit.

The lawsuit alleges the state failed to meet an agreement to maximize timber profits.

Clatsop County’s forestland represented 23 percent of the land cited in the lawsuit.

The counties rely on logging money from harvests on state lands and say they are owed $1.4 billion.

In voting to leave the lawsuit, commissioners cited concerns from residents that the state would raise taxes if it lost the legal battle to pay counties the timber revenue they say they lost.

By The Associated Press
on January 12, 2017 at 2:46 PM, updated January 12, 2017 at 2:50 PM