California's highest court reversed a lower court decision that a city needed to prepare an environmental impact report (EIR) for a local ordinance banning the use of plastic bags by local businesses. The court agreed that the plaintiff, a coalition of plastic bag manufacturers and distributors, had...
The Supreme Court of Wisconsin upheld the state environmental agency's decision to issue a permit to a town for a municipal well. Two groups challenged the agency's decision to issue the permit without considering the well's potential impact on nearby Lake Beulah, a navigable water. A circuit c...
The Federal Circuit upheld the dismissal of landowners' suit against the United States seeking compensation for the alleged taking of their riparian and upland property rights stemming from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers activities to control water levels in Lake Okeechobee. The landowners' takin...
A California appellate court dismissed a mobile home park owner's complaint challenging a city's environmental impact report (EIR) for a planned railroad grade separation project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Below, the county transportation authority intervened in the ...
A California appellate court held that an insurance company has no duty to defend or indemnify a cosmetics company in an underlying action alleging that it violated Proposition 65, the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act. The Proposition 65 claim being asserted against the compa...
The Federal Circuit upheld a lower court decision rejecting landowners' claims that the United States had taken their property without just compensation by erecting a log boom that prevented them from using a slough next to their property. The government placed the log boom in the slough to ...
A Texas appellate court reversed and remanded a $550,019 judgment awarded to property owners in their suit against a neighboring convenience store for damages stemming from a leaking UST. The evidence was legally sufficient to show that the gasoline migrated from the store's property to the plai...
A Wisconsin appellate court held that real estate agents may be held liable to the purchasers of their client's property for failing to disclose that a landfill next to the purchased property was a Superfund site. The purchasers learned that the landfill was a Superfund site shortly after closin...
California's highest court upheld a regional water board's issuance of a NPDES permit authorizing a power plant to draw cooling water from an adjacent harbor and slough. An environmental group filed suit, claiming that the permit did not satisfy the "best technology available" requirement of CWA...
The South Carolina Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision dismissing a group's declaratory judgment action against a developer for filling isolated wetlands on its property without a permit. The lower court, relying on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Solid Waste Agency of Northern Coo...