The Federal Circuit upheld the dismissal of landowners' inverse condemnation suit against the federal government alleging that their property was contaminated by trichloroethylene (TCE) as the result of government actions at a U.S. Air Force base. The landowners failed to point to some evidence pres...

A California appellate court reversed the approval of a land exchange agreement that conveyed out of the public trust 3 acres of former tidelands that have been filled in exchange for 10 acres along the Los Angeles River. California Public Resource Code §6307 requires that the underlying purpos...

A California appellate court upheld a city's adoption of a redevelopment plan for San Jose, California. The city's finding of blight in the areas affected by the plan was supported by substantial evidence., full_html...

A California appellate court reversed a lower court's grant of summary judgment in favor of a local water agency in its action to recover water charges from a property owner because triable issues of fact exist concerning the amount owed. The lower court properly dismissed the property owner's defen...

The Third Circuit reversed a district court judgment awarding compensation to property owners pursuant to the government’s taking of 6.45 acres of land in the Gettysburg National Military Park. The court impermissibly failed to apply the "unit rule" of valuation and, therefore, improperly deter...

The First Circuit held that neither the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) nor the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) waive U.S. sovereign immunity in a property owner's suit to recover monetary damages for its cleanup of past oil contamination on a former U.S. Navy base. RCRA contains no exp...

The Tenth Circuit dismissed a Native American tribe's appeal of a General Services Administration determination that property underlying a former military installation no longer lies within the tribe's present-day reservation boundaries and that the tribe is therefore not entitled to the property. T...

The Seventh Circuit held that a residential treatment facility's §1983 action against a city for denying the facility's request for a land use variance was time-barred by Indiana's two-year personal injury statute of limitations. The facility advanced an interrelated set of arguments drawing on...

New York's highest court held that the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Water Supply Police are authorized to enforce traffic laws within the city's watershed. The DEP officers were authorized as police officers under the state's criminal procedure law to stop the defendant...

A district court held that a railroad company's negligence claim against a tank installer is barred by Texas' repose statute. The case arose after a tank located on a chemical company's property ruptured and released chemicals onto neighboring railroad property. The state's repose statute bars the r...