The court holds that a district court incorrectly applied the doctrine of offensive collateral estoppel, thereby precluding the owner of a uranium mill from litigating the issue of negligence, in a case brought by a group of nearby residents who claimed that the owner's negligent operation of the mi...

The court holds that a gasoline distributor is not liable for groundwater contamination caused by a service station's leaking underground storage tanks (USTs). The owner of property adjacent to the service station filed suit against the distributor after settling with the service station for groundw...

The court holds that an insurer has no duty to insure or indemnify a construction company being sued as a third-party defendant for disposing of toxic and/or hazardous waste. The court first holds that it need not choose between the laws of New Jersey and Pennsylvania because the result is the same ...

The court holds that property owners who built unpermitted structures on a county's right-of-way so that they could access adjacent tidelands did not hold property rights in the structures and could not seek compensation under the state constitution, the U.S. Constitution, or state limited access fa...

The court holds that a city ordinance requiring all garbage collected within city limits, except garbage destined for out-of-state disposal, to be processed at the city-owned transfer station violates the dormant U.S. Commerce Clause. A waste hauler discovered it could dispose of waste more economic...

The court accepts and enters a consent decree between a citizen group and West Virginia's environmental agency that commits the agency to strengthen the application and oversight of the state's surface coal mining program authorized under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA). The g...

The court holds that a trial court correctly ruled that landowners, aggrieved by a zoning administrator's oral decision, failed to exhaust administrative remedies by not filing a timely appeal to the board of zoning appeals, as required by state statute. The landowners contested the zoning administr...

The court affirms a district court ruling that an oil company that operated a service station on leased property was liable to the lessor for all damages caused by a leaking underground storage tank, including the lessor's inability to sell or lease the property immediately surrounding the leased pr...

The court holds that a waste haulers association has standing to assert a U.S. Commerce Clause claim against a district waste authority for enacting a system of flow control ordinances that captured the district's generated waste in order to finance a trash-to-steam facility. Under the system, haule...

The court denies a county board of commissioners' petition to compel the Ohio environmental agency to disclose records designated as trade secrets that the agency received from a hazardous waste facility. The court first holds that oral argument is not warranted here because the parties' briefs are ...