Back in August of 2013, we reported that the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court, in the case of Morristown Associates v. Grant Oil Co., held that a six year statute of limitations applied to claims brought pursuant to the Spill Act.  On Tuesday, January 27, 2015, the New Jersey Supreme Court overturned that decision to find that there is no statute of limitations barring a Spill Act claim.  MGKF will shortly be issuing a Special Alert discussing this important decision in more detail.

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Case Update, Cleanup, Contamination, Cost Recovery, Decisions of Note, New Jersey, Procedure, Real Estate, Remediation, Spill Act, Statute of Limitations

Last summer we reported on Bell v. Cheswick Generating Station, 903 F. Supp. 2d 314 (3rd Cir. 2013), a Third Circuit decision which held that the Clean Air Act does not preempt state law claims for personal and property damage caused by air pollutants.  And in March, we noted, not unsurprisingly, that defendant GenOn Power had filed a Petition for Cert to the U.S. Supreme Court.  On June 2, that Petition was denied, which may have been the impetus for the Supreme Court of Iowa to release its decison in Freeman v. Grain Processing Corp., No. 13-0723 (June 13, 2014), holding that neither the Clean Air Act nor Iowa's analogous state act pre-empted similar state law claims.  The decision is a hefty one, providing a historical overview of the Clean Air Act and preemption law and an in-depth discussion leading to the Court's final determination.  Put this one aside for one evening when you're sitting in the recliner with a glass of wine at your side.   

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Air, Case Update, Clean Air Act, Iowa, Nuisance, Preemption, Third Circuit, Toxic Torts, Trespass

This summer, we reported on the Third Circuit’s decision in the Bell v. Cheswick Generating Station case, which held that the federal Clean Air Act (“CAA”) does not preempt state common law tort claims in a putative class action filed by over 1,500 residents complaining that the operations of GenOn Power Midwest, L.P.’s (“GenOn’s) coal-fired electric generation station constituted a nuisance under Pennsylvania common law.  Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Air, Case Update, Cases to Watch, Class Actions, Clean Air Act, Emissions, Nuisance, Pennsylvania, Preemption, Supreme Court, Third Circuit

In May, we reported on the case of Strudley v. Antero Resources Corp., No. 2011 CV 2218 (Denver Co. Dist. Court  May 9, 2012), in which a state trial court issued a Lone Pine order requiring the plaintiffs to show, prior to the initiation of discovery, that there was a prima facie basis for associating their personal injury claims with the defendants’ hydraulic fracturing activities.  The court subsequently dismissed the case when the plaintiffs failed, in the court's view, to meet this initial burden.  The dismissal was appealed and in Strudley v. Antero Resources Corp., Court of Appeals No. 12CA1251 (Co. Ct. Appeals, 1st Div., July 3, 2013), reversed.   Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Case Update, Causation, Contamination, Discovery, Drilling, Due Process, Marcellus Shale, Natural Gas, Oil and Gas, Procedure, Real Estate, Toxic Torts

In September of 2011, we first posted about the case of Butler v. Estate of Powers in which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed a Pennsylvania trial court decision holding that, under long-standing precedent, any grant of mineral rights that did not expressly include natural gas similarly did not include shale gas.  The Superior Court disagreed, relying on United States Steel Corp. v. Hoge, 468 A.2d 1380 (Pa. 1983)(Hoge II) which held that the party with the rights to coal also had rights to the coalbed gas contained in the coal.  Instead, the Superior Court remanded the case to the trial court for an evidentiary hearing on, in essence, whether shale gas is similar to coalbed gas and should be treated that way.  At the time we first discussed theButler case, we concluded: Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Case Update, Decisions of Note, Deeds, Drilling, Marcellus Shale, Mineral Rights, Oil and Gas, Pennsylvania, Real Estate, Uncategorized

A few months ago, we reported on an interesting Seventh Circuit opinion on CERCLA §107 claims issued in the Fox River clean-up litigation in Wisconsin.  The Fox River clean-up, and the ensuing private party litigation, represents one of a number cases that have arisen from EPA’s efforts to remediate water bodies throughout the country that have been declared to be Superfund sites—including the Lower Passaic River and Newark Bay in northern New Jersey, the Hudson River in upstate New York, and the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn.  Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Case Update, Cases to Watch, CERCLA, Cleanup, Contamination, Cost Recovery, Decisions of Note, Remediation, Superfund

Back in October, we reported on a Complaint filed in California, in the case of Center for Community Action & Environmental Justice v. Union Pacific Corporation, No. CV11-8609 (C.D. Cal.) that contended that particulate matter in diesel fuel combustion exhaust is a hazardous waste which is “disposed of” when emitted and therefore is subject to the requirements of Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).  Creative as it might have been, on a Motion to Dismiss, the Honorable S. James Otero threw out the case without leave to amend. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Air, Cancer, Case Update, Cases to Watch, Clean Air Act, Emissions, RCRA, Toxic Torts, Waste

In a unanimous opinion that probably surprises no one, today the United States Supreme Court ruled in Sackett v. EPA, No. 10-1062 (Mar. 31, 2012), that Administrative Compliance Orders are final agency orders which are subject to the Administrative Procedures Act and thus can be appealed even in the absence of an enforcement action by the EPA. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Administrative Procedures Act, Case Update, CERCLA, Clean Water Act, Decisions of Note, Due Process, Enforcement Action, Procedure, Real Estate, Supreme Court, Uncategorized, Wetlands

We previously reported on Powell v. Tosh, No. 5:09-CV-121-R (W.D. Ky. Oct. 12, 2011), a case in which the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky certified a class action filed on behalf of a group of homeowners for damages allegedly suffered as a result of odors migrating from a nearby hog farm.   As Suzanne suggested in her previous post, Powell quite possibly may have been the first decision granting class certification in an environmental toxic tort case since the Supreme Court’s June 2011 decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011) – a decision that many speculated would be the death knell to class actions in this arena.  Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Case Update, Cases to Watch, Kentucky, Nuisance, Toxic Torts, Trespass

Two months ago I blogged about  DeLalla v. Hanover Ins., No. 10-3933 (3rd Cir. Oct. 12, 2011), a case in which the Third Circuit held that, when it comes to removal, each defendant gets its own thirty-day window to file a Notice of Removal such that a later-served defendant is not foreclosed from seeking removal if the thirty-day window has already closed on the first-served defendant.  As befitting a precedential Third Circuit decision, there was clearly a lot of effort put into the 22 page opinion. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Case Update, Legislation, Procedure, Removal