The Ninth Circuit held that BLM did not violate NEPA or FLPMA when it approved the expansion of a gold mine near Nevada's Mount Tenabo. Native American tribes claimed that BLM failed to address mitigation measures specific to groundwater in situ, failed to propose new mitigation measures relating to...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that a railroad right-of-way that crossed land the United States conveyed to a family in a 1976 land patent was an easement that was extinguished when the railroad formally abandoned it in 2004, thereby leaving the family's land unburdened. The U.S. government initiated t...

Massachusetts' highest court upheld the state's "priority habitat" regulations insofar as they allow the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife to designate priority habitat without affording landowners the procedural protections statutorily due to those owning property within "significant...

The Fifth Circuit upheld the dismissal of a landowner's suit against a chemical company for damages stemming from natural gas well operations. The company operated the well in the late 1960s and early 1970s under a mineral lease that expired in 1975. The lease granted the landowners the right to sue...

The Alabama Supreme Court held that a property owner may go forward with its inverse condemnation claim against the director of the state transportation agency for allowing contaminated water to be pumped onto the owner's land. Although the agency is immune from suit, valid inverse condemnation acti...

A district court dismissed residents' lawsuit against a city for allowing a metals finishing plant to use and store acids and other dangerous chemicals. The residents' only factual allegation against the city is that it zoned the property at issue as a commercial or industrial use area and allowed t...

A district court held that BLM complied with NEPA and FLPMA when it authorized a uranium mining project in south central Wyoming. BLM, in conjunction with other state and federal agencies, undertook extensive and exhaustive reviews of the potential environmental impacts of the project, and the agenc...

The Ninth Circuit held that BLM's resource management plan (RMP) for the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument complied with NEPA and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) but violated the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). The RMP, which authorizes roads, airstrips, and...

The Supreme Court of New Jersey reversed and remanded a lower court decision awarding $375,000 in damages to beachfront property owners whose oceanfront view was obstructed by a dune built to serve as a barrier from powerful storms and ocean surges. A city used its power of eminent domain to constru...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed and remanded in part a lower court decision granting summary judgment in favor of the government in a city's lawsuit seeking to set aside DOI's decision to accept in trust, for the benefit of the Tohono O’odham Nation, a 54-acre parcel of land on whi...