ROCKLAND – The judge presiding over the class action lawsuit that last year found Maine’s three largest blueberry processors guilty of price fixing on Wednesday denied the processors’ bid to keep the growers from acquiring liens on their assets to ensure payment of the $56 million judgment.

The processors’ attorneys had asked Justice Joseph Jabar earlier this month to throw out the motion from the plaintiffs, Maine’s 500 growers, to attach the property of the processors to secure the judgment.

Attachment is a legal process by which a plaintiff can acquire a lien on a defendant’s property or effects for satisfaction of judgment that the plaintiff may obtain in the future.

Allen’s Blueberry Freezer of Ellsworth, Jasper Wyman & Son of Milbridge and Cherryfield Foods Inc. of Cherryfield are the processors.

The jury determined that growers had been shortchanged by $18.6 million in the amount that processors had paid them during the 1996-1999 seasons. The court tripled the amount Jan. 2 because of the case’s antitrust elements.

The processors have appealed the case to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

The processors’ attorneys argued during a Jan. 2 hearing that attachment for even $18.6 million would be problematic for the processors.

“The consequence of putting the attachment on their assets is that nobody will have money to do the harvest next summer,” Wyman’s attorney James Kilbreth told the court.

When the judge responded that the processors could continue to operate even after filing for bankruptcy, Kilbreth responded: “That’s what we’re talking about.”

The judge did not spell out his reasons for denying the processors’ motion to dissolve attachment.

William Robitzek, the Lewiston attorney representing the growers, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday’s development.

Growers and processors are looking toward next Monday as the day they resume negotiations in seeking to resolve the industry’s turmoil. They spent eight hours last Monday working with a facilitator in Augusta before calling it a day.

The growers involved in the search for a settlement include four more than the original four named plaintiffs.

The new growers, who fall under a gag order along with all others involved in the negotiations, are Greg Bridges of Calais, Gary Dorr of Columbia, William Jones of Hope and Nathan Norton of Addison.

The negotiations are expected to bring a settlement that will keep the processors from bankruptcy. The sides also seek to work out a new model of business, breaking from decades of tradition in which growers are paid for the blueberries two or three months after delivering them.