The court holds that an oil company's insurer must indemnify the company for environmental cleanup and abatement costs ordered by a state administrative agency. In a previous case concerning another insurer of the company, the court held that the insurer's duty to indemnify the company for "all sums...

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...

The court holds that National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration (NOAA) Fisheries erred when it denied a fishing vessel's application for an Aleutian Islands brown king crab endorsement under the license limitation program for the Bearing Sea and Aleutian Islands groundfish and crab fisheries. Th...

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...

The court dismisses as moot an animal advocacy group's claims against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) for denying their petition to list the trumpeter swan in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming as endangered or threatened and for authorizing the limited take of the swans during the 2001 and 2002 h...

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 dismisses an environmental group's Endangered Species Act (ESA) and National Environmental Policy Act claims against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries concerning logging activity on private lands in Humboldt County, California, a...

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 ...