The court holds that initiative measures generated and placed on the ballot by a public agency are not exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The city of Sierra Madre enacted a historic preservation ordinance, and several owners of landmarked property claimed that their propert...

The court dismisses individuals' public nuisance action against sugar companies that allegedly disposed of a chemical byproduct of sugar cane processing by deep well injection. A trial court dismissed the individuals' nuisance claim because the individuals did not exhaust their administrative remedi...

The court vacates and remands a trial court decision holding that Native American tribes were not entitled to damages attributable to the government's mismanagement of Native American timber resources. The trial court found that the government breached its fiduciary duty by mismanaging the tribes' t...

The court affirms a district court decision holding that a city did not violate property owners' procedural and substantive due process rights when it granted a neighboring property owner a special use permit allowing the operation of a beauty salon and the paving of a yard. The court first holds th...

The U.S. Supreme Court holds that the federal government holds title in trust for the Coeur d'Alene Indian Tribe to submerged lands underlying portions of Lake Coeur d'Alene and the St. Joe River in Idaho. The reservation was created by executive order in 1873, but it was never ratified by Congress....

The court vacates a Black Lung Benefits Review Board (Board) decision that upheld an administrative law judge's (ALJ's) determination that a Black Lung Benefits Act claimant established that a deceased relative suffered from black lung disease. The ALJ based its decision on the opinion of the pathol...

The court holds that the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) and Air National Guard's (ANG's) orders approving the Colorado Airspace Initiative (Initiative) and its underlying environmental impact analysis did not violate the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Federal Aviation Act, ...

The court affirms a trial court dismissal of a company's claim under R.C. Chapter 3746—the state voluntary action cleanup law—against the state department of transportation for costs allegedly incurred cleaning up contaminated company property. The court first holds that the company failed to un...

The Eighth Circuit remanded a lower court decision dismissing an environmental group's Freedom of Information Act request for certain documents prepared in connection with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' (the Corps') Upper Mississippi River System Flow Frequency Study. The lower court ruled in fav...

The Ninth Circuit remanded a lower court's award of enhanced attorney fees in favor of an environmental group that sued the U.S. Navy for violating certain environmental laws in connection with its use of mid-frequency active sonar in waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands. The group used attorneys...