The court rejects a petroleum company's breach of contract and liability claims against its insurer. The insurance policy required the company to secure money from a state-administered fund to finance the cleanup of contamination from leaking underground storage tanks. However, in 1990, the state pa...

The court holds that an environmental organization has associational standing to sue a chemical company for violating the terms of its National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permit under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. The court first rejects the district court's finding that the o...

The court holds that the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM's) denial under the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) Land Withdrawal Act of an application to drill on an oil and gas lease did not constitute a permanent taking of the leaseholder's rights. BLM denied the application until the U.S. Environ...

The court holds that a citizen group may maintain a private right-of-action against a state agency under discriminatory effect regulations promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pursuant to §602 of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The citizen group alleged that a state agenc...

The court holds that the Price-Anderson Act does not expressly prohibit the Navajo tribal court from determining its jurisdiction over tribal members' personal injury and wrongful death claims arising from uranium mining activities on the Navajo Nation Reservation. The court first holds that defenda...

The U.S. Supreme Court holds that a case containing claims that local administrative action violates federal law, but also containing state-law claims for on-the-record review of the administrative findings, can be removed to federal district court. The city of Chicago removed to federal court a law...

The court holds that the Eleventh Amendment does not immunize a receiver of estate trusts from being sued solely in its representative capacity. The state of California filed suit against the trustees of a manufacturer's estate to recover cleanup costs at the plant. At the trustees' request, the Con...

The court holds that a district court did not abuse its discretion in finding expert testimony concerning a corporation's claim of land contamination by a neighboring company to be unreliable. The corporation's contamination claim arose as a response to a trespassing counterclaim that the neighborin...

The court holds that a developer's takings claim against the United States is barred by 28 U.S.C. §2501's six-year statute of limitations. Two developers claim that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' denial of a permit application to construct a levee, and the Corps' subsequent selection of an alter...

The court holds that under Louisiana law, the successor to a former oil company is directly liable for the cleanup costs of an abandoned oil lease site. When the original lessee conveyed to the company an oil and gas lease, the company consented to the inclusion of a covenant to clean up the leased ...