A court held that a biomedical company may go forward with its suit for injunctive relief to stop terrifying acts allegedly committed by members of an animal rights group who targeted the company's employees as part of an effort to expose animal abuse in biomedical labs. The group argued that the co...
A court dismissed an environmental group's lawsuit against wind power operators in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area. The group argued that the operators violated the state's unfair competition law and the common-law public trust doctrine based on bird collisions with the wind turbines. But the g...
A district court granted in part and denied in part motions to dismiss a lawsuit challenging a local ballot initiative that prohibits the land application of sewage treatment residues in the unincorporated areas of a county. A city that generates the biosolids, as well as farms and contractors who r...
A California appellate court reversed a lower court decision dismissing a citizen group's petition for writ of mandate challenging a city's approval of a shopping center. The group claimed that the city's certification of the final environmental impact report and its approval of a use permit for the...
A California appellate court upheld a county's environmental impact report (EIR) for a proposed sand, gravel, and granite mine located on ranchland near a stream. An environmental group argued that the county violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by failing to include and analyze ...
The court held that Texas is a suitable alternative forum for a family's California survival and wrongful death action against a chemical manufacturer in a case involving their husband and father who contracted fatal leukemia due to his alleged exposure to chemicals in both California and Texas. The...
The court reversed and remanded a lower court decision dismissing a property owner's claims against the former tenants and operators of a gas station in New Jersey and two oil companies that supplied gasoline to the site. There were issues of material fact as to whether delivery spills and overfills...
The court cut nearly in half the $4.5 billion punitive damages award against Exxon Mobil in connection with its 1989 oil spill in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The ratio of punitive damages to actual economic harm resulting from the spill exceeded by a material factor the ratio that would be appropr...
The court dismissed a landowner's takings claim against a county for denying it a variance from a local ordinance that prohibits landfills within three miles of a water-supply reservoir. The action was barred by res judicata. The facts relevant to the landowner's present takings claim—the coun...
An appellate court reversed a lower court decision concerning the forfeiture of certain previously appropriated waters of the Kern River. The parties' primary dispute concerned the theoretical entitlement of a junior user versus the volume of water actually available to that user on a given day. The...