A California appellate court upheld a county ordinance banning single-use plastic bags and imposing a fee on single-use paper bags against claims that the ordinance was enacted in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The county determined that the ordinance was categorically...

A Colorado appellate court held that under state law, a trial court may not order plaintiffs in a toxic tort case to present prima facie evidence supporting their claims after initial disclosures, but before full discovery begins, or risk having their case dismissed. The case arose after homeowners ...

The Supreme Court of New Jersey reversed and remanded a lower court decision awarding $375,000 in damages to beachfront property owners whose oceanfront view was obstructed by a dune built to serve as a barrier from powerful storms and ocean surges. A city used its power of eminent domain to constru...

A district court vacated an SEC rule that requires certain companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments in connection with the commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals. The rule was promulgated in response to §13(q) of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Prot...

A district court held unlawful BLM's methodology for assessing the impact of federal actions on the northern spotted owl as well as its failure to offer for sale a declared amount of timber from two western Oregon districts. Under the Oregon and California Lands Act of 1937 (O&C Act), once BLM d...

A district court granted environmental groups' motion to intervene in a landowner's lawsuit challenging FWS' critical habitat designation for the dusky gopher frog in portions of Louisiana and Mississippi. The landowner, who owns property that falls within the designation, argued that the designatio...

Maryland's highest court denied requests to reconsider two of its prior rulings in which it reversed a lower court's decision awarding residents punitive damages for emotional distress and medical monitoring. Below, the residents claimed that an oil company was responsible for contaminating their gr...