An Illinois appellate court held that the Illinois Pollution Control Board erred when it upheld the state environmental agency's decision to reissue NPDES permits for three large water reclamation plants in the Chicago area. Petitioners argued that the permits fail to include conditions ensuring tha...

A North Carolina appellate court upheld a trial court's decision to cap a property owner's award of remediation damages to the diminution in property value, not the amount it would cost to clean up the property, thereby reducing a jury's award from $1.5 million to $108,500. The case involves a prope...

A district court, on motions for summary judgment, dismissed all but one of a property owner's environmental, waste, and breach of lease claims against various manufacturing companies that leased the site. The owner has been leasing the property since 1972, but it has largely been an absentee landlo...

The Ninth Circuit held that EPA did not act arbitrarily and capriciously when it disapproved in part Arizona's regional haze SIP and issued a replacement federal implementation plan (FIP) in place of the disapproved SIP elements. First, EPA did not act arbitrarily and capriciously when it disapprove...

The Fifth Circuit held that a mass action lawsuit in Louisiana concerning personal injury and property damages due to alleged contamination exposure may not be removed to federal court under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). The plaintiffs filed an amended petition that substituted deceased plai...

West Virginia's highest court held that individuals' lawsuit against a power company for injuries they allegedly incurred due to their exposure to coal combustion waste may go forward in the West Virginia courts even though the vast majority of plaintiffs live outside the state. Of the 77 named plai...