The court holds that the U.S. government is not liable as an operator under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for hazardous waste cleanup costs at an abandoned mine site. The court first holds that CERCLA clearly exposes the federal government to suit...
The court holds that the discretionary function exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) bars landowners' claims that the military's disposal of wastewater at the Walker Air Force Base near Roswell. New Mexico, contaminated their residential wells with trichloroethylene (TCE). The court first...
One of the most fundamental tenets of toxicology is that "the dose determines the poison." This simple phrase provides the basis for the belief that all agents—chemicals and physical phenomena that are capable of producing some effect—have the potential to cause toxicity. Whether toxicity actually occurs is principally a matter of dose: the greater the exposure to a given agent, the more pronounced or severe the response of a cell or organism.
The court holds that a potentially responsible party (PRP) must pay 1 percent of the past and future response costs incurred during the cleanup of a contaminated site in Salt Lake City, Utah, by a committee of PRPs under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERC...
The court holds that a defendant-operator company and a defendant-transporter company are liable under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for costs incurred in cleaning up the MIG/De Wane Superfund site in Illinois, and orders them each to pay over $2 ...
The Court holds that the issue of liability in a developer's regulatory takings claim against a city was properly submitted to a jury. After the city imposed more rigorous demands each time it denied five proposals to develop a 37.6-acre oceanfront parcel in Monterey, California, the developer filed...
The court holds that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Eastern Enterprises v. Apfel, 118 S. Ct. 2131 (1998), does not undercut the constitutionality of retroactive liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). In Eastern Enterprises, the Supre...
The court holds that a pesticide manufacturing partnership is liable for response costs in a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) §113 contribution action brought by the corporation that purchased the partnership's assets. The court first holds that the val...
The court holds that a state court action brought by a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) potentially responsible party (PRP) to obtain from state documents pertaining to an environmental cleanup cannot be removed to federal court. In state court, the PRP ...
The Court holds that documents passing between Native American tribes and the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) are not exempt from the Freedom of Information Act's (FOIA's) disclosure requirements as intraagency communication that would normally be privileged in civil discovery. The documents a...