Palmer Ranch Holdings Ltd. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Service
The Eleventh Circuit held that a developer is entitled to a charitable deduction on its 2006 tax return for granting a conservation easement on an 82-acre parcel of property that contained a bald eagle nest. The developer valued the parcel at $25.2 million on the assumption that the property's highe...
New York v. Next Millennium Realty, LLC
A district court held that New York may seek response costs and natural resource damages under CERCLA in connection with a contaminated industrial site in Long Island, a portion of which was listed on the NPL in 2011. The state's past response actions at the site were consistent with the national co...
Land O'Lakes, Inc. v. United States
A district court dismissed a company's declaratory judgment action concerning its liability for cleanup costs that EPA incurred at the Hudson Oil Refinery Superfund site in Cushing, Oklahoma. The company owned and operated the site from 1943 to 1977, when it sold the refinery to the current owner. I...
Garrett Day, LLC v. International Paper Co.
A district court held that the owner of a contaminated property that was once the site of a paper mill may not seek response costs from a company that had purchased the assets of the prior owner of the mill. The owner argued that the company was liable under CERCLA under a de facto merger theory of ...
Northern Illinois Gas Co. v. City of Evanston
A district court dismissed a city's RCRA action against two power and gas companies concerning a methane gas leak from natural gas pipelines and waste oil contamination from a former manufacturing gas plant. Because methane gas does not meet the definition of "solid waste" under RCRA, the city canno...