566 results for 'cat:"Environment"'.
Per curiam, the appellate division finds that the lower court improperly dismissed the building owners' claim that the city's Local Law 97, which targets building emission limits to combat climate change and improve air quality, is preempted by New York State's Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. A reasonable reading of the state law could understand the law as prohibiting local legislation that limits the state's authority to implement greenhouse gas emissions reduction measures. However, the owners' due process claims were correctly dismissed. Reversed in part.
Court: New York Appellate Divisions, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: May 16, 2024, Case #: 02754, Categories: environment, Municipal Law, Preemption
J. Boyle grants the North Carolina and National Wildlife Federations’ motions to intervene in this litigation where a businessman moved for preliminary injunctions against the federal Department of Environmental Protection after it expanded the Clean Water Act that allegedly threatens the businessman’s seafood company. Initially, the businessman objected to the federations joining the department’s party, but has since changed his mind. Since the federations timely moved to intervene and have a vested interest in the litigation, they are allowed to join.
Court: USDC Eastern District of North Carolina, Judge: Boyle, Filed On: May 16, 2024, Case #: 2:24cv13, NOS: Administrative Procedure Act/Review or Appeal of Agency Decision - Other Suits, Categories: Administrative Law, environment
J. Mauro finds that the trial court prematurely discharged a writ that directed the Department of General Services to revisit its certification of the environmental impact report for a plan to demolish the State Capitol Building Annex. The Department certified a revised environmental impact report that left a visitor center out of the project. But the Department must still determine whether the revised environmental impact report for the approved portions of the project comply with this court's decision in Save Our Capitol. Reversed.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Mauro, Filed On: May 15, 2024, Case #: C100160, Categories: Construction, environment
J. Pillard denies petitions for review filed by the petroleum industry and renewable fuel industry challenging renewable fuel production standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency for 2020 to 2022. The EPA adequately justified its decisions, and the industries fail to show the standards are unreasonable.
Court: DC Circuit, Judge: Pillard, Filed On: May 14, 2024, Case #: 22-1210 , Categories: Energy, environment
J. Kobayashi dismisses an environmental nonprofit’s challenge to the Navy over the contamination of Hawaii waters by its Red Hill fuel storage facility. The facility is in the process of being decommissioned and defueled, so this case may conflict with already existing administrative state and federal processes. However, the nonprofit may amend the complaint to specify their environmental claims for elements such as remediation that are not covered in the administrative processes. Elements that are covered will be stayed pending progression of the defueling.
Court: USDC Hawaii, Judge: Kobayashi, Filed On: May 14, 2024, Case #: 1:22cv272, NOS: Environmental Matters - Other Suits, Categories: environment, Government, Jurisdiction
Want access to unlimited case records and advanced research tools? Create your free CasePortal account now. No credit card required to register.
Try CasePortal for Free
J. Ede reverses the district court's grant of an injunction to opponents of the Minneapolis 2040 plan in their Minnesota Environmental Rights Act suit against the city challenging the plan's implementation. The district court abused its discretion in ordering injunctive relief, namely a reversion to the city's 2030 plan, that was unsupported by evidence in the record, was based on legal error, and imposed an unnecessary hardship on the city. Reversed.
Court: Minnesota Court Of Appeals, Judge: Ede, Filed On: May 13, 2024, Case #: A23-1382, Categories: environment, Municipal Law, Injunction
J. Shah partially grants Walmart’s motion to dismiss a consumer fraud class action. The consumers say Walmart deceptively labeled its seafood products as “sustainably sourced,” when in reality its source fisheries both overfish and use unsustainable practices such as bottom trawling. Citing lack of standing, the court dismisses the class representative’s claims against seafood products she did not personally buy, and also denies her request for injunctive relief. The court also dismisses her claim under the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act, but allows her Illinois consumer fraud, consumer protection and unjust enrichment claims to survive.
Court: USDC Northern District of Illinois, Judge: Shah, Filed On: May 13, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv1297, NOS: Contract Product Liability - Contract, Categories: environment, Fraud, Consumer Law
J. Andrews finds a lower court properly dismissed a local resident's objections to a proposed development. The local resident argued that the housing and community authority forged development plans for a crematorium and ceremony hall in a Green Belt, which violates the Town and Country Planning Act of 1990 based on its location in a flood risk zone. However, the planning committee sufficiently showed court that it followed a site- specific flood risk assessment drawn up by a structural engineer company, which determined that the land is not a flood risk.
Court: Her Majesty's Court of Appeal, Judge: Andrews, Filed On: May 10, 2024, Case #: CA-2023-388, Categories: Construction, environment, Government
J. Hicks grants the Department of the Interior's motion to dismiss. The nonprofit wild horse public education group challenges the government's proposed "gather" of excess horses for population control purposes. Certain federal code precludes liability in federal government actors, and cited case law remedies are not available against a federal agency. Relief specific to a concluded gather is moot, though not as to future gathers. The bureau's motion to dismiss the First Amendment cause of action is granted, as it fails to establish a qualified right to view “humane” gathers.
Court: USDC Nevada, Judge: Hicks , Filed On: May 8, 2024, Case #: 3:23cv372, NOS: Environmental Matters - Other Suits, Categories: environment, Agency, First Amendment
J. Joseph grants summary judgment to General Electric, dismissing all land contamination claims by one of two sets of central Louisiana property owners. The litigants unsuccessfully alleged that under a theory of successor liability, the GE is responsible for the clean-up of decades of soil and groundwater contamination from a now-closed pipe valve manufacturing plant. The landowners offer no proof to controvert the business records offered by GE, which show the corporation’s relationship with the failed factory is “indirect and removed by multiple degrees" and “the doctrine of successor liability does not apply to GE at all.” The landowners’ “barebones argument” that GE assumed the liabilities of the plant’s previous owners is unpersuasive.
Court: USDC Western District of Louisiana , Judge: Joseph, Filed On: May 7, 2024, Case #: 1:22cv263, NOS: Torts to Land - Real Property, Categories: Corporations, environment, Evidence
J. Clay finds the lower court erroneously dismissed the adjacent landowner's Clean Water Act claims against the landfill operator on the grounds of claim preclusion. Although some of the issues presented in the lawsuit, including the issue of fill material used at the site, were present prior to the operator's consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency, the landowner could not have litigated them at that point because Tennessee did not have the authority to issue the proper permits. However, because the landowner failed to follow notice requirements after the landfill operator entered into the consent decree, the lower court properly dismissed the claims in the suit that deal with violations after the decree was signed. Reversed in part.
Court: 6th Circuit, Judge: Clay, Filed On: May 7, 2024, Case #: 22-6118, Categories: Civil Procedure, environment, Water
J. Broderick partially declines to approve ExxonMobil's settlement agreement reached with Pennsylvania in this consolidated action over the contamination of groundwater from various energy defendants' use of the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether. The oil company has not sufficiently explained why, as a matter of law, all monetary damages claims against it in this case are barred, or why Pennsylvania law prohibits natural resource damages.
Court: USDC Southern District of New York, Judge: Broderick, Filed On: May 6, 2024, Case #: 1:14cv6228, NOS: Property Damage Product Liability - Torts - Personal Property, Categories: environment, Settlements, Tort
J. Pan upholds the district court's finding for the government agencies on three environmental groups' challenge to their assessments regarding the effects the dredging of the San Juan Harbor will have on the environment and endangered species. The groups fail to show the agencies' determinations were arbitrary or capricious. Affirmed.
Court: DC Circuit, Judge: Pan, Filed On: May 3, 2024, Case #: 23-5189 , Categories: environment, Water
J. Fisher finds that the lower court improperly annulled the decision authorizing an oversight agency to use an aquatic herbicide to control spread of the invasive Eurasian watermilfoil in Lake George. The board of the Adirondack Park Agency rationally approved the permit, as members received scientific studies and research demonstrating that the herbicide would be minimally harmful to native plants and water insects and more cost-effective than previously attempted eradication methods. Meanwhile, the agency was due judicial deference on factual evaluations within its area of expertise. Reversed.
Court: New York Appellate Divisions, Judge: Fisher, Filed On: May 2, 2024, Case #: CV-23-0672, Categories: Administrative Law, environment
J. Grant finds that the district court improperly dismissed the nonprofit's action for lack of standing on its claim that the Corps issued a dock permit for one of Georgia's barrier islands without full environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act. The nonprofit's members alleged that they suffered an aesthetic injury from viewing the dock and alleged they suffered procedural harm when the Corps failed to complete the full review process. Although the dock has already been built, relief for the nonprofit's alleged procedural harm is still possible. Review could still occur and the Corps could reconsider the decision to allow the dock. The district court correctly dismissed the nonprofit's claim alleging a violation of the Cumberland Island National Seashore Act. Reversed in part.
Court: 11th Circuit, Judge: Grant, Filed On: May 2, 2024, Case #: 22-11079, Categories: environment
[Consolidated.] J. Baltodano holds that the trial court must revisit the restitution claims of four commercial fishers who argue they lost revenue due to a crude oil spill. Neither a mediated civil settlement nor a class action lawsuit bar restitution for commercial fishers who demonstrate direct financial losses from the criminally unlawful discharge. However, the trial court properly denied restitution to oil platform employees who relied on the oil industry since the income they lost when the pipeline shut down made them only indirect victims. Reversed in part.
Court: California Courts Of Appeal, Judge: Baltodano, Filed On: May 2, 2024, Case #: B315256, Categories: Restitution, environment, Criminal Negligence
J. Scirica finds the EPA properly made its own plan to regulate emissions in Pennsylvania. “The EPA properly exercised its authority under the Clean Air Act by partially disapproving the 2016 [state implementation plan] and promulgating the [federal implementation plan].” Affirmed.
Court: 3rd Circuit, Judge: Scirica, Filed On: May 2, 2024, Case #: 22-3026, Categories: Constitution, environment
[Consolidated.] J. Walker refuses to grant petitions for review filed by environmental groups that challenge the Federal Energy Regulator Commission's certification of an expansion of pipelines and facilities for the Evangeline Pass Expansion Project in the Southeastern U.S. The agency reasonably explained its decision, and the certification was reasonable.
Court: DC Circuit, Judge: Walker, Filed On: April 30, 2024, Case #: 22-1101 , Categories: Administrative Law, Energy, environment
J. Ezra partially grants Texas’ motion to dismiss after the federal government sued the state and Governor Greg Abbott over its “buoy barrier” in the Rio Grande, which was installed in the national water boundary “without any federal authorization.” While the United States can proceed with claims under the federal Rivers and Harbors Act, it cannot pursue claims based on the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo because the treaty is “not self-executing” and does not “provide any specific standard or rule of decision for a domestic court to follow.” Nonetheless, while Texas has asserted that it has “territorial rights” to protect itself from a migrant “invasion,” “the Founding Fathers conceptualized invasions as a part of war” and not due to migration.
Court: USDC Western District of Texas , Judge: Ezra, Filed On: April 26, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv853, NOS: Environmental Matters - Other Suits, Categories: environment, Government, Immigration
[Consolidated.] J. Moll finds the lower court erroneously sustained the adjacent property owner's appeal of the township's approval of a subdivision redevelopment without an environmental impact assessment. The relevant zoning procedures require only a developer submit a request for such an assessment, not that one be completed. The assessment company failed to complete the assessment as it was developing new procedures, and because the zoning laws allow the zoning commission to act without a submitted assessment, it was not improper to approve the redevelopment project. Reversed in part.
Court: Connecticut Court Of Appeals, Judge: Moll, Filed On: April 26, 2024, Case #: AC46146, Categories: environment, Property, Zoning
J. Eyester denies the contractor's claim for price increases. Contracted for tree removal, pruning and roadside trimming at Lake O’ the Pines, Texas, the contractor claims the Army Corps of Engineers misclassified certain services causing a $7,117 increase in performance. While certain pruning services were removed from the contract and tree removal was increased due to a deep freeze, this does not establish a prior course of dealing eliminating performance on other task orders. There is no prior course of dealing evidencing the waiver of performance.
Court: Armed Services Board Of Contract Appeals, Judge: Eyester, Filed On: April 26, 2024, Case #: 63768, Categories: environment, Government, Contract
J. Moeller finds that the district court properly held that a Department of Water Resources enforcement action was not barred by a two-year limitations period. The period began to run when the department's director became aware that a landowner had not completed the streambank restoration required by a consent order. The landowner was involved in ongoing negotiations with the department over his compliance, so the director would have first known he did not plan to comply when he sought declaratory relief. Affirmed.
Court: Idaho Supreme Court, Judge: Moeller, Filed On: April 24, 2024, Case #: 50273, Categories: environment, Water
J. Moss denies the state of Florida's motion seeking a stay of an injunction entered in a suit brought under the Endangered Species Act pending appeal. Staying the decision would, in effect, deny the environmental groups the preliminary injunctive relief they sought, so the public interest and risk of injury to those groups weigh against a stay. Florida, meanwhile, has not demonstrated that it is likely to suffer an irreparable injury absent a stay, nor that it is likely to prevail on appeal.
Court: USDC District of Columbia, Judge: Moss, Filed On: April 23, 2024, Case #: 1:21cv119, NOS: Environmental Matters - Other Suits, Categories: Civil Procedure, environment