The First Circuit held that under Massachusetts law, an insurance company has no contractual obligation to defend or indemnify an individual in an environmental liability suit brought against him by his neighbors for soil contamination stemming from a leaking underground storage tank (UST). The tota...

A California appellate court upheld a lower court decision dismissing claims challenging a memorandum of understanding (MOU) entered into by a state agency and an environmental group to help implement the California Marine Life Protection Act. In enacting the statute, the state legislature failed to...

The Supreme Court of South Dakota upheld the state's approval of a permit to construct a coal-fired energy conversion facility. Certain nonprofit environmental organizations asserted that the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the plant would contribute to global warming, thereby posing a threat of...

A district court held that a nonsettling potentially responsible party (PRP) may intervene in a consent decree between the United States and settling PRPs concerning the reimbursement of response costs incurred at the Beede Waste Oil Superfund site in Plaistow, New Hampshire. The nonsettling PRP's m...

A district court granted a motion to dismiss Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, and New Jersey Spill Compensation and Control Act claims filed against the state environmental agency and its commissioner in connection ...

A California appellate court held that an insurance company had no duty to defend or indemnify its insured, a furniture stripping business, in underlying suits against it stemming from the release of chemicals into a public sewer system. The case arose after a private contractor repairing sewer line...

A California appellate court held that the California Coastal Act of 1976 does not grant the California Coastal Commission the power to declare property an "environmentally sensitive habitat area" during the administrative appeal from a local government's grant of a coastal development permit. The C...

The Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court judgment finding the U.S. Forest Service liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) for failing to correct or warn of a dangerous condition on a snowmobile trail that led to an individual becoming gravely injured. The discretionary function exception to th...

A magistrate judge denied an insurer's motion for summary judgment in a case seeking coverage for damages sustained to a building during the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. The insurance policy contained a pollution exclusion clause, but because of the "virtually boundless" arr...

The D.C. Circuit held that a lower court improperly dismissed individuals' National Environmental Policy Act and National Historic Preservation Act claims against the Secretary of the Army and developers in connection with the closure and redevelopment of Fort Ritchie, a former U.S. Army base in wes...