The court holds that a defense contractor that operated the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant in Colorado could recover under its contract with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) legal fees and other costs it incurred in a successful defense against environmental criminal charges brought against it...

The court affirms a lower court decision that an insurer had no duty to defend a scrap metal processing and recycling company in an administrative action brought against it by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources. The company failed to meet its burden of proving the applicability o...

The court holds that a district court improperly admitted expert scientific testimony in an action alleging injuries from exposure to hazardous substances through the operation of a uranium mill. The lower court failed to perform its gatekeeper function with respect to plaintiffs' experts and thereb...

The court rejects a timber company's Declaratory Judgment Act claim against two private environmental groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The environmental groups filed a notice of intent to sue the FWS and the NMFS under the Endangered...

The court holds that a lower court erred in upholding a local ordinance that provided an exclusive garbage collection and hauling franchise to a sanitation company. A competing company filed suit against the city after one of its employees was arrested for violating the ordinance. The court first ho...

The court holds that a local air quality management district is immune from a rancher's negligence claim against it for miscalculating the amount of marketable pollution credits the ranch earned for reducing agricultural burning. The district mistakenly issued the ranch 470 tons of credits more than...

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...