A district court denied environmental groups' motion to preliminarily enjoin a pipeline company from continuing construction on an oil pipeline in the Atchafalaya Basin. The groups sought the injunction to prevent alleged irreparable harm to the basin, arguing that the company was violating key perm...
The U.S. Sentencing Commission proposed amendments to the sentencing guidelines for U.S. courts.
The Arizona Supreme Court vacated a ruling that a Native American tribe sufficiently alleged standing to bring a public nuisance claim against a resort using reclaimed wastewater to make artificial snow on the San Francisco Peaks in northern Arizona. Before the lower court, the tribe argued that the...
A Texas court, ruling on a petition for pre-suit discovery, held that it would have jurisdiction over a major oil corporation's potential lawsuit against several California cities that have filed suit against it relating to climate change. The company's potential claims would allege, among other thi...
A district court granted California cities' motions to remand their climate change tort actions against oil and gas companies back to state court. Although their state law claims raise national and perhaps global questions, they should not have been removed to federal court. Removal based on federal...
A district court held that public interest and environmental groups lacked standing to challenge the "two-for-one" executive order issued by President Trump on January 30, 2017. The order requires executive branch agencies to identify two existing regulations to be repealed for every new regulation,...
A district court denied a manufacturing company's motion to certify for interlocutory appeal certain questions pertaining to its statute of limitations and claim preclusion defenses in an underlying case over who should bear the cost of cleaning up contamination at a steel processing site. The curre...
A district court granted Missouri's remand request to litigate in state court its lawsuit against the owner and operator of a landfill in connection with an uncontrolled, underground trash fire at the site. The state alleged various state law violations, along with claims for nuisance, cost recovery...
A district court held it lacks subject matter jurisdiction over a class action lawsuit that stems from the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan. The plaintiffs alleged that the city violated their constitutional rights and state law by providing contaminated water and requiring them to pay ...
The Supreme Court of Montana upheld a lower court decision dismissing a smelting company's state-law claims against an oil refinery in connection with costs incurred remediating a former lead smelting site in East Helena, Montana. The refinery sold the site to the smelting company in 1972. Under the...