Justia Environmental Law Opinion Summaries

In 2009 the Forest Service awarded Scott contracts to remove timber on federally-owned plots during a designated period. Scott was then pursuing litigation based on delays in other contracts resulting from environmental litigation. The government therefore included provisions in the contracts at issue, authorizing suspension of the contracts to comply with court orders or for environmental reasons. The contracts provided for term adjustment, but prohibited award of lost profits, attorney’s fees, replacement costs, and similar losses. Another environmental suit arose in Oregon, resulting in an injunction that included the contracts at issue. The Forest Service suspended the contracts and began protected species surveys required by that litigation. Surveys were completed in late 2000, but the suspensions continued, due to new litigation, until 2003. In 2004-2008, Scott harvested the total contractual amount of timber. In 2005, Scott sought damages. The Claims Court found breach of an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing and that the government unreasonably delayed the surveys and continued the suspensions. The court found that Scott was entitled to $28,742 in lost profits and $129,599 in additional costs, offset by some actual profit; the government was also liable to a log-processing subcontractor, for $6,771,397 in lost profits; The Federal Circuit reversed. View "Scott Timber Co. v. United States" on Justia Law

This appeal concerned the construction of a single word, "sudden," within a pollution exclusion clause in a series of liability insurance policies barring coverage for certain damages unless the events causing those damages were "sudden and accidental" (an issue of first impression in New Mexico). Concluding that "sudden" lacks a single clear meaning, the Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals' holding that the word unambiguously signifies "quick, abrupt, or a temporarily short period of time. . . .Under well-established principles of insurance law," the Court construed this ambiguity in favor of the insured, Petitioner United Nuclear Corporation, and interpreted the term "sudden" in the insurance policies at issue in this dispute to mean "unexpected." the case was remanded to the district court for further proceedings. View "United Nuclear Corp. v. Allstate Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted for illegally trafficking in sperm whale teeth and narwhal tusks. Specifically, the jury found Defendant's whale-tooth dealings violated CITES, an international compact implemented in the United States via the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and regulations authorized by the ESA. Defendant appealed, contending (1) the district judge should have instructed the jury on certain lesser-included offenses because he did not actually know his transactions were illegal, even if he should have known; and (2) smuggling convictions are legally wrong because his conduct violated only regulations, not statutes. The First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed after quoting a line from Moby Dick, holding (1) the district court did not err in failing to give the requested instructions because a rational jury could not have found that Defendant lacked actual knowledge that his whale-tooth transactions were illegal; and (2) the smuggling statute criminalizes violations of regulations like those implementing CITES because Congress intended the word "law" in the phrase "contrary to law" to include regulatory law as well as statutory law. View "United States v. Place" on Justia Law

This case involved the Service's regulations under Section 101(a)(5)(A) of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), 16 U.S.C. 1371(a), that authorized incidental take of polar bears and Pacific walruses resulting from oil and gas exploration activities in the Chukchi Sea and on the adjacent coast of Alaska. Plaintiffs brought suit challenging the regulations and accompanying environmental review documents under various environmental acts. The court held that the Service permissibly determined that only "relatively small numbers" of polar bears and Pacific walruses would be taken in relation to the size of their larger populations, because the agency separately determined that the anticipated take would have only a "negligible impact" on the mammals' annual rates of recruitment or survival. The "small numbers" determination was consistent with the statute and was not arbitrary and capricious. The court also held that the Service's accompanying Biological Opinion and Environmental Assessment (EA) complied with the Endangered Species Act (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1531 et seq., and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq. View "Center for Biological Diversity, et al. v. Salazar, et al." on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from a petition to review the EPA's August 2011 implementation of the statutory good neighbor requirement, the Transport Rule, also known as the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule, which defined emissions reduction responsibilities for 28 upwind States based on those States' contributions to downwind States' air quality problems. The court held that the Transport Rule exceeded the EPA's statutory authority (1) by using the good neighbor provision to impose massive emissions reduction requirements on upwind States without regard to the limits imposed by the statutory text and (2) by departing from its consistent prior approach to implementing the good neighbor provision and violating the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq., because it did not allow the States the initial opportunity to implement the required reductions with respect to sources within their borders. View "EME Homer City Generation, L.P v. EPA" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, cattle producers, appealed the district court's dismissal of their Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. 1346(b)(1), complaint, alleging that a government employee negligently caused illness and death within their cattle herd by mandating a toxic plant mixture on pasture land enrolled in a conservation program. The district court held that the allegations of negligence involved the employee's exercise of protected discretion and therefore fell within the discretionary function exception to the FTCA's waiver of sovereign immunity. The court held that the employee's selection of a seeding plan was discretionary but that it was not the type of discretionary action Congress intended to shield from suit. View "Herden, et al. v. United States" on Justia Law

In this declaratory judgment proceeding, the defendant, Citizens Insurance Company of America, appealed a superior court order which ruled in favor of the plaintiff, The Barking Dog, Ltd., which operates a dog kennel and grooming business at several locations in New Hampshire. The court ruled that an insurance policy issued by the defendant provided coverage for damage to the plaintiff’s septic system and ordered the defendant to pay the plaintiff $20,000, the agreed upon damage amount. The court also ruled that the defendant was not prejudiced by the plaintiff’s failure to disclose its expert’s report in a timely manner or its failure to disclose its expert’s curriculum vitae and, accordingly, permitted the plaintiff’s expert to testify at trial. The defendant argued that both rulings were error. Finding no error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "The Barking Dog, Ltd. v. Citizens Insurance Company of America" on Justia Law

A private company applied to build a wastewater treatment facility that would occupy many acres within the area protected by the Coastal Zone Act (CZA). The application proceeded through multiple layers of review, and came before the Supreme Court to decide where this facility fit within the CZA’s classification scheme, how to enforce the regulations governing “offsets” when the facility constitutes its own offset and the permit contains conditions, and the legal status of an order from the Coastal Zone Industrial Control Board that a majority of members agreed to, but less than a majority signed. The Court remanded the case to the Board, with instructions that the facility at issue is neither a “heavy industry” use nor a “manufacturing” use, and that the Board should take care to follow the statutory requirement that all members of a quorum of a Board sign any order on which they voted. View "Sierra Club Citizens Coalition Inc. v. Tidewater Environmental Services, Inc." on Justia Law

The Fish and Wildlife Services, an agency in the Department of the Interior, removed the West Virginia Northern Flying Squirrel from the list of endangered species. Friends of Blackwater filed a complaint in the district court claiming (1) promulgation of the delisting rule violated the Endangered Species Act by ignoring the objective, measurable criteria in the Recovery Plan and (2) the Rule itself was arbitrary and capricious. The district court entered summary judgment for the plaintiff on the ground that the Service violated the Act by removing the squirrel from the list of endangered species when several criteria in the agency's Recovery Plan for the species had not been satisfied. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding (1) the district court erred by interpreting the Recovery Plan as binding the Secretary of the Interior in his delisting decision; and (2) the Service's action was not arbitrary, capricious, and contrary to law. View "Friends of Blackwater v. Salazar" on Justia Law

In June 2004, Petitioners-Appellants Hui O Na Wai 'Eha and Maui Tomorrow Foundation, Inc. (Hui/MTF), through Earthjustice, petitioned Appellee Commission on Water Resource Management to amend the Interim Instream Flow Standards (IIFS) for Na Wai 'Eha, which had been in place since 1988. Around the same time, several parties, including Appellee Maui County Department of Water Supply (MDWS), and Appellees Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company (HC&S) and Wailuku Water Company (WWC), filed Water Use Permit Applications (WUPA) for the same area. The Commission held a combined case hearing to resolve the IIFS and WUPA; in addition to the petitioner and applicants, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) applied to participate in the hearing. The appeal before the Supreme Court sought review of the Commission's resulting Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law (FOF/COL), and Decision and Order (D&O), in which the Commission amended the IIFS for two of the four streams, and substantially retained the existing IIFS for the two remaining streams as measured above diversions. The FOF/COL and D&O also resolved several WUPA. Hui/MTF and OHA appealed on related grounds: their primary complaint was that the Commission erred in balancing instream and noninstream uses, and therefore the IIFS does not properly protect traditional and customary native Hawaiian rights, appurtenant water rights, or the public trust. Both parties also contested the Commission’s treatment of diversions, including an alternative source on HC&S’s plantation that could have been used to irrigate HC&S’s cane fields. The parties contested the Commission’s determination that HC&S would not be required to pump the alternate source to its full capacity, a decision that resulted in a higher estimated allowable diversion for HC&S, and lower IIFS for the streams. Upon review, the Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings. First, in considering the effect of the IIFS on native Hawaiian practices in Na Wai 'Eha, the Commission failed to enter findings of fact and conclusions of law regarding the effect of the amended IIFS on traditional and customary native Hawaiian practices regarding the feasibility of protecting any affected practices. Second, the Commission’s analysis of instream uses was incomplete. Third, the Commission erred in its consideration of alternative water sources and in its calculation of diverting parties’ acreage and reasonable system losses. View "In re 'Iao Ground Water Management Area High-Level Source Water Use Permit Applications" on Justia Law