A court holds that insurance companies have no duty to defend or indemnify a scrap metal company for underlying environmental contamination claims stemming from the illegal disposal of salt cake. One insurer had no duty to defend or indemnify the company because the evidence clearly demonstrated tha...
A court dismisses a building owner's request for a declaratory judgment entitling it to indemnification for any damages or penalties it may be obligated to pay arising from asbestos violations that occurred during asbestos abatement work at its property. The owner claimed that the abatement company'...
A court dismisses on motions for summary judgment landowner's trespass, negligence, and Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) claims against their neighbor for groundwater contamination. The landowners failed to set forth evidence that their neighbor breached...
A court dismisses an individual's qui tam action against various airports for certifying that their actions complied with various environmental laws in order to obtain funds from the Federal Aviation Administration. Specifically, the individual argued that the airports' deicing operations violated t...
A court holds that portions of an environmental impact report (EIR) for a water quality improvement program in the San Francisco Bay comply with the California Environmental Quality Act. The court rejected the majority of challenges that concerned the adequacy of the EIR's analysis of impacts on the...
A court orders a lower court to grant a county's motion to dismiss on ripeness grounds an inverse condemnation action brought by a land developer. The developer argued that a land use regulation, as applied to its property, constituted a taking under the federal and California Constitutions. The cou...
The court upholds the denial of a company's request for attorneys fees stemming from an unsuccessful U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) action against it for discharging dredge and fill material into wetlands without a permit. An administrative law judge initially held that the company viola...
The court holds that the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's actions in response to an outbreak of avian influenza did not deprive a poultry farmer of his property in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The case arose after three flocks of the farmer's chickens were suspected of having avian...
A court held that a city's approval of an environmental impact report (EIR) for a proposed industrial/business park violated the California Environmental Quality Act. Although no other defects were found, the EIR did not sufficiently discuss the adequacy of water supplies for the project. Certain wa...
A court reverses the state transportation agency's approval of an environmental impact report (EIR) for a proposed freeway interchange project in connection with a proposed hotel and casino complex on Native American lands and remanded the EIR for additional analysis. By analyzing the project's traf...