The court holds that the political question doctrine does not bar a federal court from resolving landowners' suits alleging that a state-managed fish pass significantly contributed to beach erosion on their property. The court first holds that the landowners' claims for injunctive relief and damages...

The court upholds as reasonable and fair a settlement agreement in a citizen suit challenging the federal government's failure to perform Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) duties concerning mountaintop mining in West Virginia. The agreement purported to settle environmental groups' claims ...

The court holds that property owners operated two illegal junkyards in violation of a city's zoning laws and that such operation constituted a nuisance. The city planning commission determined that the properties were nuisances, and the commission's decision to uphold the city's cease and desist ord...

The court holds that when a party is liable for pollution response costs under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), it must share them regardless of whether it is the sole cause of the costs. An airplane manufacturer brought a contribution action agains...

A district court held that a property owner's Minnesota Environmental Response and Liability Act (MERLA) claims against a former owner are not time barred even though the state agency issued a "decision document" describing the former owner's cleanup of the site as "final" well beyond the statute of...

The Ninth Circuit held that a 2007 voter-approved initiative that overturned a 2004 initiative giving property owners relief from development restrictions under Oregon land-use laws, or payment for the lost value of their land, did not violate the Contract Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Waivers gr...

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multistate Litigation consolidated and transferred to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana 77 lawsuits related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The actions indisputably share factual issues concerning the cause (or causes) ...

A Louisiana appellate court reversed a lower court decision denying property owners' right to sue oil and gas companies for contamination and damages due to their past operations on the site. The operations were conducted under mineral leases that remain active today. The owners purchased the site i...

The court affirms a state water court decision denying and dismissing with prejudice a county's applications for decrees for conditional water rights for a large water storage project west of the Continental Divide in the Upper Gunnison River Basin. The county argued that the basin contained ample w...

The court reverses a portion of a state environmental agency order that imposed a civil penalty against a city for discharging sewage sludge without a permit in violation of an Oregon statute. The city was granted a national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES) permit to operate a sewage d...