The court holds that exemption 5 of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exempts the U.S. Forest Service from disclosing two documents relating to its investigation of the Southwestern Regional Forester's and Deputy Forester's allegedly illegal and unethical management of the region. The court firs...

The court holds that under the open fields doctrine, state natural resource officials may enter a landowner's property to conduct a warrantless inspection of wetlands on the property without violating the landowner's Fourth Amendment rights. The court finds that the 175-acre property that the landow...

The court denies a private-property owner injunctive relief on its claim that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and EPA employees violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when an EPA emergency response team entered onto the property without a warrant and removed water and ...

The court upholds Nevada county ordinances requiring landowners either to subscribe to a particular garbage collection service or to haul their garbage to an approved disposal site every seven days. The ordinances also required all landowners that cannot prove that they properly disposed of their ow...

The court holds that several physicians' and a toxicologist's testimony that an individual's exposure to an herbicide caused his medical problems is inadmissible. None of the treating physicians have knowledge about the herbicide, its components, or the toxicological effects that it could produce. T...

The court holds that property owners' negligence, nuisance, and trespass claims against a battery crushing and lead processing plant in their neighborhood are time barred. The court first holds that their negligence claim is barred by Pennsylvania's statute of limitations, because their praecipe for...

The court reverses a district court opinion that the stare decisis effect of a decision by a federal district court in Washington State bars appellants' current challenge to the president's 1994 forest plan. The court holds that stare decisis does not require a district court in one circuit to follo...

The Court holds that a landowner's takings claim against a regional planning agency is ripe for adjudication. The agency determined that the landowner may not develop her property but is entitled to transferable development rights (TDRs). The Court first notes that its discussion is confined to whet...

The court holds that the owner of a salt mine is not liable to the owners of the surface estate for damage that the mine suffered during a collapse and innundation, but may be liable for damages caused by subsidence of the surface estate. The court previously held that the surface owners had a rever...

The court holds that a municipal solid waste district that condemned a landowner's property for use as a landfill did not violate the landowner's right to due process or "take" money the landowner spent fighting the condemnation, but may have violated the landowner's right to equal protection. The c...