A district court held that a request for information from EPA to a cement company under CERCLA §104(e) constitutes a "suit" under the terms of the company's insurance policies, thereby triggering the insurers' duty to defend. Under the Oregon Environmental Cleanup Assistance Act (OECAA), the EP...

The court holds that neither the six-year statute of limitations set forth in 28 U.S.C. §2415(a) nor the Federal Oil and Gas Royalty Management Act (FOGRMA) bars U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) administrative orders requiring mineral lessees to pay additional royalties and interest on oil pro...

The court holds that an insurance company must defend and indemnify building owners who were sued by telemarketers who worked in the building and were injured from exposure to fumes from carpet glue used to recarpet the building. The court first holds that the pollution exclusion found in the policy...

The court holds that the doctrine of res judicata does not bar landowners' third-party state-law contribution and indemnification claim against a neighboring company for cleanup costs the state incurred in its efforts to remedy petroleum contamination on the landowners' property. The company previou...

The court holds that a trial court properly dismissed a property owner's third-party complaint against an oil company for reimbursement of any cleanup costs the owner was required to pay to the state of New York in connection with gasoline contamination at the property. The oil company's predecessor...

The court dismisses an individual's Clean Water Act (CWA) citizen suit against an electricity company for lack of standing. The individual claimed that a company violated the CWA by discharging pollutants into Echo Bay, New York. The court first holds that although the individual's amended interroga...

The court dismisses on ripeness grounds an environmental group's claim that the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, and Executive Order No. 11990 with respect to the proposed e...

The court holds that the U.S. Forest Service's decision not to require its contract pilots to have a specific type of training is protected by the discretionary function exception to the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). The families of two pilots who died when the airtanker the pilots were flying dur...

The court affirms a bankruptcy court's denial of a successive owner's motion challenging a settlement agreement entered by the prior owner of a contaminated site, the state of West Virginia, and the town where the site was located, that partially released the successive owner from liability for wate...

The court reverses a district court decision that descendants of a Native American who was fatally injured on a logging site on a Native American reservation in Montana failed to state a cause of action under state law against the United States and that the Federal Tort Claims Act's (FTCA's) discret...