The court holds that a group of rock climbers lack standing to challenge as a violation of the Establishment Clause the National Park Service's voluntary closure of Devils Tower National Monument in its final climbing management plan (FCMP). The FCMP asks rock climbers to voluntarily refrain from cl...

The Court holds that the tribal exhaustion doctrine does not require a district court to abstain from deciding whether Native Americans' tort claims arising from uranium mining on their reservation constitute public liability actions under the Price-Anderson Act. The defendant companies filed suit i...

The court holds that it lacks jurisdiction over an appeal from a judgment that assessed Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act response costs and damages against a dry cleaning company for perchloroethylene contamination at a shopping center. The court first holds that...

The court holds that landowners are due no compensation from the United States after the federal government entered their property to sink wells and monitor groundwater migration from an adjacent contaminated property. The court first holds that under federal law, special benefits to a landowner's r...

The court holds that a district court properly reduced a $15 million punitive damage award to $4.35 million in a nuisance and trespass case against a mining company that contaminated neighboring property owners' streams. The court first holds that the district court did not err in reducing the award...

Applying Texas law, the court holds that an insurer properly denied an oil company coverage for a discharge of pollutants that contaminated adjacent property and waterways. The pollution was caused when a drilling pit collapsed in the company's well. The court first holds that the insurer legitimate...

The court holds that a commercial property owner may bring a negligent remediation claim against the owner of a gasoline station for damages allegedly caused by gasoline that leaked from the station's underground storage tanks (USTs). The property owner, however, cannot bring strict liability, tresp...

The court refuses to dismiss a property owner's nuisance claims against a company that contaminated land near the owner's home with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The court, however, dismisses the property owner's remaining claims. The court first dismisses the owner's claims of negligence, aggra...

The court upholds the Research and Special Programs Administration's (RSPA's) final emergency discharge control rule for cargo tank motor vehicles and its interpretation of the attendance regulation requiring an operator to be in attendance during the loading and unloading of cargo tanks. Gas compan...

The Court reverses the Tenth Circuit and holds that U.S. reservation of coal under the Coal Land Acts of 1909 and 1910 did not include coalbed methane (CBM) gas. Consequently, a Native American tribe having equitable title to coal in reservation lands that homesteaders settled under the 1909 and 191...