The court holds that most of the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for a proposed highway realignment through Hatton Canyon near Carmel-by-the-Sea in California satisfies the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The court then address...

The court denies the federal government's motion for summary judgment in a case where a farmer alleged that the government took his property without just compensation by ordering the farmer to cease operation of a drainage system and restore his property to its prior condition as wetlands. The court...

The court affirms a district court's dismissal for failure to join indispensable parties to a Native American tribe's claims challenging the U.S. Department of the Interior's (DOI's) methods for calculating funding the tribe receives under its tribal self-governance compact. In 1988, the tribe enter...

The First Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction over an electric company's challenge to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) determination that ferric ferrocyanide is a hazardous substance under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). Ferric fer...

The court affirms a district court decision that a county's 1998 acceptance of a 1987 irrevocable offer to dedicate a portion of beachfront property was not a taking of the current owner's property. The court first holds that the prior owners of the property that made offers to dedicate to the count...

The court affirms a district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of a transit authority that was sued in a qui tam action under the False Claims Act (FCA) by an employee of one of its subcontractors, but vacates the district court's award of attorney fees to be paid by the employee's attorney...

The court dismisses a coal mining association's claim against the Secretary of the Interior seeking to force the federal government to turn over approximately $1.3 billion allegedly due to the commonwealth of Kentucky under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act's (SMCRA's) abandoned mine re...

The Court holds that state sovereign immunity bars the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) from adjudicating a private party's complaint against a nonconsenting state. A cruise line offering gambling cruises sued the South Carolina State Ports Authority (SCSPA) for denying the cruise line's five appli...

The court preliminarily enjoins the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) from proceeding with a highway project that involves road construction and expansion through parkland. DOT prepared an environmental assessment (EA) and finding of no significant impact for the project instead of an environm...

A district court held that evidence of an oil company's conduct presented at a trial concerning methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) groundwater contamination in New York is insufficient as a matter of law to establish the degree of maliciousness, recklessness, or wanton conduct to support an award of...