The court holds that an insurance company need not indemnify a county for expenses it incurred in responding to an administrative agency order requiring it to remediate environmental contamination at a county landfill. The nonstandard, excess third-party liability policy at issue obligates the insur...

A court holds that portions of an environmental impact report (EIR) for a water quality improvement program in the San Francisco Bay comply with the California Environmental Quality Act. The court rejected the majority of challenges that concerned the adequacy of the EIR's analysis of impacts on the...

A court orders a lower court to grant a county's motion to dismiss on ripeness grounds an inverse condemnation action brought by a land developer. The developer argued that a land use regulation, as applied to its property, constituted a taking under the federal and California Constitutions. The cou...

A court held that a city's approval of an environmental impact report (EIR) for a proposed industrial/business park violated the California Environmental Quality Act. Although no other defects were found, the EIR did not sufficiently discuss the adequacy of water supplies for the project. Certain wa...

A court reverses the state transportation agency's approval of an environmental impact report (EIR) for a proposed freeway interchange project in connection with a proposed hotel and casino complex on Native American lands and remanded the EIR for additional analysis. By analyzing the project's traf...

A court holds that California Penal Code 653o, which bans the import of products made from certain animals, including kangaroos, into California is preempted by federal law and by general federal objectives of kangaroo conservation. The statute as applied in this case conflicts with federal law and ...

A court upholds, with modification, a trial court decision in favor of an insurance company in a case involving an aerospace manufacturer's claim for coverage under numerous insurance policies for pollution-related liability totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. It was error for the trial court ...

A court holds that a city need not prepare an environmental impact report (EIR) under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for a hotel project in San Diego, California. The potential environmental impacts of the project were adequately examined in two earlier EIRs for a city redevelopment...

The court dismisses in part and denies in part a petition for judicial review of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's decision to allow an owner and operator of a hydroelectric project on the Sebasticook River in Maine to surrender its license and breach a dam. Nearby landowners complained tha...

A court reverses a lower court's grant of peremptory writ ordering the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the California Department of Fish and Game to set aside their administrative determinations regarding the logging and use of certain land in the Headwaters Forest. The low...