A district court denied the U.S. motion to dismiss residents' consolidated claims for damages stemming from the devastating flooding that occurred in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The residents argued that the damage was the foreseeable consequence of at least two defective conditions known b...
A California appellate court upheld a lower court order directing a town to set aside its issuance of a permit to Steve Jobs—co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple—to demolish a historic mansion so he could construct a smaller-single family residence. The town council found that the pro...
The court upheld a U.S. Department of Labor administrative review board decision dismissing a civilian chemist's complaint that his former employer—the U.S. Army—violated the employee protection provisions of several environmental statutes and retaliated against him by creating a hostile work en...
The Court reversed a Tenth Circuit ruling in favor of an engineer who filed a qui tam suit against his former employer—a nuclear weapons plant—under the False Claims Act (FCA). While working at the plant, the engineer predicted that the company's system for creating solid "pondcrete" blocks from...
A Pennsylvania court upheld a state environmental agency's decision to issue an air quality permit authorizing the construction of a waste coal-fired power plant capable of generating approximately 525 megawatts of electricity. The nitrogen oxide emission limit for the plant met the lowest achievabl...
A district court awarded an environmental group attorneys fees, expert fees, and costs in connection with its underlying Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act and Emergency Planning Right-To-Know Act reporting claims against a power company, but awarded the group none...
The U.S. Supreme Court held that two flow-control ordinances requiring delivery of local solid waste to a publicly owned processing facility do not discriminate against interstate commerce in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The ordinances at issue treat in-state private business interests exactl...
A district court granted in part a motion to reconsider its previous ruling dismissing an industrial park owners' CERCLA and (RCRA claims against the prior owner. The current owner filed suit against the prior owner for violations stemming from the presence of asbestos on the property. In the previo...
A California appellate court held that California Government Code §17516c is unconstitutional to the extent it exempts regional water board orders from California's subvention requirement. The case arose after the Regional Water Quality Control Board for Los Angeles issued an NPDES permit for munic...
The court held that under Ohio law, a landowner must exhaust his state remedies before proceeding with his takings claim against a county in federal court. Although Ohio does not have an inverse condemnation statutory cause of action, the owner has not filed a trespass action, a mandamus action, or ...