A California appellate court rejected a petition to invalidate a regional district's annexation of 144,000 acres of coastland. Although the public notice for a protest hearing failed to include a statement of reasons for the annexation, this was not prejudicial. Nor was any potential ambiguity in th...

The Tenth Circuit upheld the constitutionality of Colorado's Clean Indoor Air Act. The Act bans smoking in indoor areas, but it expressly exempts from this general prohibition "airport smoking concessions" such as airport restaurants and bars. A coalition of tavern and bar owners filed suit challeng...

A California appellate court upheld the California Coastal Commission's denial of a coastal development permit to build a home. The commission determined that the property contains an "environmentally sensitive habitat area" that had not been designated in the Los Angeles County land use plan and th...

The Eleventh Circuit held that a lower court erred by finding that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) conducted an adequate search in response to a Native American tribe's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents concerning the Agency's Clean Water Act review of Florida&rs...

A California appellate court reversed the denial of a petition challenging a city's approval of an application to demolish a building to make way for a larger parking lot. The city concluded that the building was not an historic resource and that the project was exempt from the California Environmen...

The D.C. Circuit dismissed developers' lawsuit challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' definition of "waters of the United States" in a 1986 rule as facially invalid under the Commerce Clause. The action is barred by the six-year statute-of-limitations period under 28 U.S.C. §2401(a). Bec...

A California appellate court held that a trial court improperly denied a group's motion to preliminarily enjoin a school district from demolishing 49 housing units to make way for a new school under the power of eminent domain. The group argued that the environmental impact report for the project vi...

The Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction enjoining the California Air Resources Board from enforcing state regulations that limit emissions from the auxiliary diesel engines of ocean-going vessels within 24 miles of California's coast. Clean Air Act (CAA) §209(e)(2)(A) requires California to obta...

A Louisiana appellate court affirmed in part a lower court decision in favor of residents who brought a class action suit against New Orleans for converting a municipal landfill into a residential area in the Ninth Ward. The city was negligent in its actions and inactions that resulted in the conver...

A California appellate court reversed a lower court's award of $5 million in punitive damages against a pipeline company for trespass, nuisance, and negligence in connection with underground oil contamination that was caused by a leak from one of the company's pipelines. The company argued that its ...