The court upholds a district court decision dismissing school districts and parents' action against the Washington state treasurer and superintendent of education to stop the state from reducing the school districts' state-mandated aid by the amount of federal forest funds it receives. Under 16 U.S....

The court holds that under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the former owners of a contaminated site in Georgia are liable for the disposal of hazardous waste at the site. A potentially responsible party (PRP) shipped containers of hazardous waste t...

The court grants summary judgment to a company on the state-law counterclaims brought by the past owners of a contaminated site where the company disposed of hazardous wastes. The contaminated site had been operated as a metal plating business and was owned at various times by an individual, a famil...

A California appellate court held that the California Coastal Commission has appellate jurisdiction over a coastal development subdivision project. A county's approval of a "principal permitted use" development within a coastal zone is not appealable to the Commission. But when the development proje...

A district court held that an oil company cannot be held liable for punitive damages in a property owner's case against it for soil and groundwater contamination. The company operated oil and gas wells on the property, and it stored hazardous and toxic materials produced from the wells in an unlined...

A district court granted in part and denied in part motions to dismiss various individuals' personal injury claims stemming from their exposure to oil and dispersants following the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The individuals filed suit against oil drillers, cleanup responders, and a dispersant manuf...

The Seventh Circuit held that a landowner who sold a large parcel of floodplain property to a conservation group may not ask a local drainage district to indemnify him for damages he incurred in an underlying breach of warranty suit stemming from petroleum contamination on the property. The landowne...

The Third Circuit vacated a lower court decision dismissing, on grounds of abstention, environmental groups' RCRA and CWA citizens suit in which they sought an injunction requiring the current and prior owners of a contaminated site to remediate contaminated sediments in the Raritan River. The group...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision invalidating the U.S. Forest Service's 2007 travel management plan for parts of the Lewis and Clark National Forest. Nothing in the Montana Wilderness Study Act of 1977, which requires the Service to manage a wilderness study area so as to "maintain"...