Applying the "open fields" exception to the Fourth Amendment approved in Hester v. United States, 265 U.S. 52, 59, that Supreme Court unanimously rules that the Fourth Amendment is not violated when a state health inspector enters a corporation's outdoor premises without its consent to take opacity ...

The court affirms a lower court ruling that allowed limited construction to continue on the Caesar Creek and East Fork dam projects despite the insufficiency of the NEPA impact statement, but reverses the district court's refusal to permit certain conservation groups, affected property owners, and a...

The First Circuit Court of Appeals lacks appellate jurisdiction to review a lower court's denial of a temporary restraining order prohibiting three demonstration flights by the Concorde, a supersonic transport (SST), in and out of Boston. The court finds that there is no showing these three subsonic...

The court overrules a lower court and holds that a city's denial of water and sewer hookup permits to a planned housing project for minority farmworkers which is to be located outside the city limits constitutes discrimination. The city's attempt to justify denial on the basis of zoning regulations ...

A landowner who dumps debris into a marshland area of a navigable river with the intent of filling the marsh, thereby damaging the ecological balance of the river, must have a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers. Failure to have a permit when depositing refuse in a navigable waterway constitutes...

Two chemical corporations located in Canada are held subject to an Ohio court's in personam jurisdiction under the state's long-arm statute, and the court permanently enjoins both defendants from any further discharges of mercury into the tributaries of Lake Erie. The lake and its tributaries consti...

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirms a lower court ruling that Con Ed may not dump rock and fill material from its Storm King Project into the Hudson River without first obtaining a permit from the Corps of Engineers under §404 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. A...

In a suit to block defendant developers and the city of Grand Haven from planned construction of a city street and a water pipeline through a duneland nature preserve, the court denies defendant's motion for summary judgment and holds that the Michigan Environmental Protection Act of 1970 is neither...

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals holds that the doctrine of primary jurisdiction requires the reversal and remand of a district court ruling that the Wilderness Act prohibits the exercise of private mineral rights within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) of the Superior National Forest. The l...

The Vermont Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the state's Land Gains Tax that imposes a levy determined by the gain and the holding period on the sale or exchange of land held less than six years. The plaintiff's claims that the law violates the Equal Protection Clause have failed to ov...