The preliminary injunction restraining defendants from proceeding with the implementation of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, a navigation project in Alabama and Mississippi that is expected to create a new, inter-regional trade route between the Gulf Coast and much of the mid-continent region of t...

Section 1161 (b) (4) of the Federal Pollution Control Act, 33 U.S.C. §1161 (b) (4), which provides immunity from prosecution under the Refuse Act of 1899, 33 U.S.C. §§407, 411, for a person in charge of a polluting vessel or facility on the basis of his own immediate notification to the governmen...

The Fourth Circuit affirms the district court's dismissal of the case for lack of federal jurisdiction. Plaintiffs allege assault and battery committed by defendants as plaintiffs were attempting to obtain photographic evidence of an alleged violation of the 1899 Refuse Act by defendant strip mining...

The environmental impact statement for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, submitted by the Department of the Interior March 20, 1972, and the method of arriving at it, meet all requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act and comply with the Council on Environmental Quality guidelines under NEPA. A...

The United States Forest Service abused its administrative discretion in declaring that the "Lakes Area" of Coconino National Forest is not a "proclaimed recreation area" within the meaning of Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act of 1968 (49 U.S.C.A. §1653(f)). Although the determin...

A court has the authority and the duty to consider the adequacy of an environmental impact report prepared in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act and may enjoin a project until the report covering it is deemed adequate by the court. The strong statement of public policy in the A...

28 U.S.C. §1391 (e) states that an action "may be brought in any judicial district in which: (1) a defendant in the action resides . . . ." The provision does not require that venue lie in the district in which the defendant who might be most intimately concerned with the subject of the l...

A diversity case may not proceed as a class action when the named plaintiffs meet the jurisdictional amount but the unnamed representatives of the class do not. This defect may not be cured by the named plaintiffs allocating part of their share of punitive damages to the class members. Each member m...

Congress did not create a mandatory right to injunction for a NEPA violation. Even though the Army Corps of Engineers has not yet prepared a draft or final environmental impact statement for the Truman Dam and Reservoir Project on the Osage River in Missouri, plaintiffs' motion for temporary and per...

California's legislation patterned on NEPA (Public Resources Code §§21000 et seq.) requires that a municipal body submit an environmental impact statement before a conditional use or building permit is granted to a private party. The language of §21151, calling on local governmental agencies to "...