The court affirms, but on different grounds, a lower court decision invalidating a local ordinance prohibiting new mining activities in a town. The lower court erred in invalidating the local law based on the town's failure to comply with the state law's notice requirements. Because the local mining...

The court holds that a solid waste flow control requirement imposed by a 22-county waste authority in Mississippi violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The authority required waste haulers to deliver collected materials to a designated publicly owned facility. The ruling in United H...

The court affirms the dismissal of a property owner's appeal of a town wetlands commission's grant of a wetlands and watercourse permit for the construction of a subdivision on land adjacent to that of the property owner. The property owner misconstrued Connecticut General Statutes §22a-41(a)(2...

The court affirms a trial court ruling that 760 pages of documents that a steel mill had previously provided to Colorado's state environmental agency constitutes "emission data" that could be disclosed to a union intervening in a state enforcement action against the steel mill. The Colorado Air Poll...

The court reverses a jury verdict awarding damages to the employee of a contractor who sued the railroad for injuries caused when a drum of spent signal batteries exploded during the contractor's disposal of the batteries. The employee sought to recover from the railroad under the peculiar risk doct...

The court vacates and remands a district court order under the All Writs Act requiring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) to accept dredged material in order to prevent the frustration of a consent decree between a city and the state of Michigan addressing water pollution problems around t...

The court held that a defective jury charge denied agricultural operators the protection of the Texas Right to Farm Act's affirmative defense against claims that agricultural operations are a nuisance. The Act provides that no nuisance action may be brought against an agricultural operation that has...

The U.S. Supreme Court holds that an association's claim that a National Park Service (NPS) regulation that purports to render the Contract Disputes Act (CDA) inapplicable to concession contracts is not yet ripe for adjudication. The lower courts upheld the regulation, finding that the NPS' interpre...

The court affirms in part and vacates in part a district court decision dismissing a Native American tribe's claims against a public utility, the United States, and a city that owned a hydroelectric project. The tribe claimed that the project interfered with rights under the treaty that created the ...

The court holds that a city's condemnation of five allotments of Native American lands in 1920 and the subsequent transfer of those lands to a hydroelectric power project were invalid. Under 25 U.S.C. §357, lands allotted in severalty to Native Americans may be condemned for any public purpose ...