A district court granted in part and denied in part the motion of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to dismiss a mine operator’s action relating to the MSHA’s use of a citation quota, which allegedly caused mine inspectors to issue baseless citations to the operator. As a ...

A district court granted in part and denied in part the United States' motion to dismiss citizen groups’ claims challenging the approval of certain quarterly oil and gas lease sales under, among other things, the APA, FLPMA, the Mineral Lands Leasing Act (MLLA), the National Forest Management ...

The D.C. Circuit denied industry groups’ petition for review of a Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) decision to enforce a final exposure limit standard for exposure of miners in metal and non-metal underground mines to diesel particulate matter (DPM) in diesel exhaust. This decision...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part a lower court decision related to the United States’ effort to recoup under the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Indian Tribes Water Rights Settlement Act of 1990 (Settlement Act) excess diversions of water that an irrigation district permitted over man...

The First Circuit dismissed a land trust's claim that a statute revoking its title to lands in a canal area amounted to a taking and violated its due process rights. The statute amended Law 489, which among other things, created the land trust and transferred to the trust title to certain lands that...

The Fifth Circuit, in a class action suit, reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings a lower court decision dismissing landowners' Fifth Amendment takings claims arising from the conversion of a railroad right-of-way to a recreational trail traversing their land. The la...

The Federal Circuit upheld the dismissal of landowners' inverse condemnation suit against the federal government alleging that their property was contaminated by trichloroethylene (TCE) as the result of government actions at a U.S. Air Force base. The landowners failed to point to some evidence pres...

The Third Circuit reversed a district court judgment awarding compensation to property owners pursuant to the government’s taking of 6.45 acres of land in the Gettysburg National Military Park. The court impermissibly failed to apply the "unit rule" of valuation and, therefore, improperly deter...

The Court held that the "substantially advances" formula, announced in Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255, 10 ELR 20361 (1980), is not an appropriate test for determining whether a government regulation effects a Fifth Amendment taking. The "substantially advances" formula prescribes an inquiry ...

The court vacated a lower court order denying environmental groups' motion for attorneys fees in an underlying case challenging a surface mining operation permit. In that case, the groups sought, and eventually obtained, a writ of mandamus setting aside the permit. Pursuant to California Code of Civ...