The Ninth Circuit held that FDA properly withheld certain information concerning egg-production farms in Texas that was requested by an animal rights group under FOIA. FOIA Exemption 4 applies to “trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person and privileged or confid...
The Supreme Court of Montana upheld a lower court decision dismissing a smelting company's state-law claims against an oil refinery in connection with costs incurred remediating a former lead smelting site in East Helena, Montana. The refinery sold the site to the smelting company in 1972. Under the...
The Fifth Circuit upheld a lower court decision ordering a commercial fishing company to pay back the money it received from the Deepwater Horizon settlement fund and barring it from receiving future payments. The Deepwater Horizon Economic and Property Damages Settlement Agreement included a Seafoo...
A magistrate judge recommended that a district court deny motions to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a group of young people against the U.S. government for failing to protect them from climate change. The plaintiffs alleged that the government has known for decades that carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution ...
A district court dismissed an individual's Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) lawsuit against the United States for allegedly causing him to suffer severe emotional trauma and harm to his "internal organs" after he woke up to the sound of a U.S. Park Police helicopter flying overhead. The helicopter was...
A district court dismissed a lawsuit brought by Indian fishermen and farmers against the World Bank in connection with a $450 million loan issued for the construction of a coal-fired power plant in India. The plaintiffs filed suit against the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC), arg...
The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision dismissing the Navajo Nation's lawsuit against the National Park Service (NPS) that seeks immediate return of human remains and associated funerary objects taken from its reservation. Between 1931 and 1990, NPS removed 303 sets of human remains and a...
A district court dismissed a lawsuit brought by individual miners and various mining groups, associations, and businesses challenging an Oregon law that temporarily bans instream motorized mining to protect water quality and fish habitat. The law, with some exceptions, temporarily prohibits instream...
A Montana court vacated and remanded a water discharge permit that the state's environmental agency issued to a coal mine in southeastern Montana. The agency's decisions are arbitrary and not supported by the law, and when viewed in its totality, the record demonstrates clear errors of judgment with...
The Ninth Circuit held that the public disclosure bar of the False Claims Act did not bar an individual's qui tam lawsuit against his employer under the Act. The employer, an engineering company, entered into a contract with NOAA to design and build a Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS...