The Seventh Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a citizen group's 42 U.S.C. §1983 action against state park officials for refusing to include in the park's display racks pamphlets warning of asbestos in the park. A park is a traditional public forum, and thus the park authorities...

The Ninth Circuit held that a city's mobile home rent control ordinance, which effects a transfer of nearly 90 percent of the property value from mobile home park owners to mobile home tenants, constitutes a facial regulatory taking under Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U.S. 10...

The First Circuit upheld the dismissal of a Native American tribe's claim challenging the Bureau of Indian Affair's (BIA's) decision to allow a plot of tribal land to be leased for the construction and operation of a liquefied natural gas facility. The tribe argued that the BIA's decision violated t...

The Tenth Circuit held that a proposed intervener may not establish standing, and thus federal court jurisdiction over its motion to intervene, by "piggybacking" on the standing of an existing party to a lawsuit over which the district court has retained jurisdiction but within which there is no cur...

The Ninth Circuit held that animal rights organizations lacked standing to challenge a USDA notice stating that "there is no specific federal humane handling and slaughter statute for poultry." The lower court entered summary judgment in favor of the USDA, holding that while the plain meaning of the...

The Third Circuit affirmed a lower court decision denying a mining company's motion to expand a preliminary injunction and enjoin asbestos claims against the state of Montana arising from the company's mining operations. The company filed for Chapter 11 under the Bankruptcy Code in 2001. The same da...

A district court remanded to state court a city's CWA and state law claims against another city challenging its imposition of a 25% surcharge on wastewater treatment services. The plaintiff city seeks a declaration that the surcharge violates the CWA. Although the plaintiff city referred to the fede...

A district court denied a manufacturer's motion for preliminary injunction to retain the "Energy Star" energy efficiency label that DOE ordered it to remove from approximately 40,000 of its refrigerators. The central issue in the case was the proper procedures for testing the energy efficiency of th...

The First Circuit dismissed a land trust's claim that a statute revoking its title to lands in a canal area amounted to a taking and violated its due process rights. The statute amended Law 489, which among other things, created the land trust and transferred to the trust title to certain lands that...

The Fifth Circuit vacates an earlier ruling in which a panel reversed a lower court decision dismissing Mississippi residents' class action lawsuit against several energy, fossil fuel, and chemical companies for their alleged contribution to climate change. When the court first granted rehearing en ...