The Alaska Supreme Court held that gasoline leaked from the broken fill pipe of an underground storage tank (UST) is a "pollutant" under the absolute pollution exclusion contained in the tank owner's commercial liability insurance policy. The policy's pollution exclusion unambiguously excluded prope...

An Illinois appellate court reinstated a $120 million jury verdict awarded in favor of residents who filed a nuisance class action suit against the owner of a nearby oil refinery. After the entry of the multimillion dollar jury award in favor of the residents, the trial court decertified the class, ...

A California appellate court upheld the dismissal of a landowner's claims that an airport land use compatibility plan for the Travis Air Force Base is not consistent with an Air Force installation compatible use zone study prepared for the site. A landowner argued that the safety and noise standards...

The Rhode Island Supreme Court reversed a jury verdict finding three lead paint producers liable for creating a public nuisance. The state has not and cannot allege any set of facts to support its public nuisance claim that would establish that defendants interfered with a public right or that defen...

A New York court held that the state environmental agency arbitrarily and capriciously denied a developer's application to include in the state brownfield cleanup program certain parcels of contaminated land that it plans to convert into a mega-mall and resort center. Admission into the program give...

The Indiana Supreme Court held that landowners who incurred costs remediating contamination from leaking underground storage tanks may go forward with their state-law contribution claim against the prior owners under the Indiana Underground Storage Tanks Act. The 10-year statute of limitations does ...

A Georgia court vacated a state air pollution permit allowing an energy company to construct and operate a 1,200 megawatt coal-fired power plant. Because there was no effort to identify, evaluate, or apply available technologies that would control carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and because the perm...

A California appellate court held that while the State Aeronautics Act does not compel a county to allow continued operation of an airport, its closure constitutes a "project" under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The State Aeronautics Act focuses on safety standards and the control...

A district court held that under Oregon law, a pollution exclusion clause bars coverage for unintended water contamination stemming from a company's intentional discharge of thorium into a city sewer system. The company thought that natural forces would dissipate the waste rendering it harmless. The...

The First Circuit affirmed a lower court's entry of a consent decree allocating certain responsibilities among a city, the state of Maine, and a telecommunications company for the cleanup of a contaminated river bed in Maine under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability...