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Showing 65 posts in Pennsylvania.

Last week the Third Circuit Court of Appeals issued a precedential opinion reversing the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s decision granting a Motion to Dismiss a complaint filed by homeowners concerning alleged odors and air contaminants emanating from the Bethlehem landfill, thus reviving the case. Baptiste v. Bethlehem Landfill Co., No. 19-1692, slip op. (3d. Cir. July 13, 2020). In doing so, the Court found that a class of Pennsylvania homeowners allegedly affected by landfill odors may bring suit under theories of negligence, public nuisance and private nuisance. Read More »

This Post was authored by Lisa Maeyer, a MGKF summer associate. 

On June 8, 2020, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania affirmed a trial court’s holding that flooding from sewage overflows not resulting from intentional activity on the part of a sanitary authority did not constitute a de facto taking of a landowner’s affected property. In the Matter of: Condemnation by the Franklin Twp. Sewage Auth., No. 1237 C.D. 2019, 2020 WL 3039070 (Pa. Cmwlth. June 8, 2020). In particular, the Court held that because the sewage overflows resulted from the age of the system and infiltration and inflows not caused by any actions of the Franklin Township Municipal Sanitary Authority (the “Authority”), the lower court properly sustained preliminary objections to Plaintiff William Ott’s petition seeking compensation for a de facto taking of his property. Read More »

In Frazer/Exton Development, L.P. v. United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a takings claim against the federal government relating to environmental contamination because the appellants, current and former landowners of the site at issue, filed their lawsuit more than 6 years after environmental remediation was complete. Frazer/Exton Development, L.P. v. United States, No. 2019-2143 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 7, 2020). Read More »

On February 21, 2020, the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court dismissed a claim brought by a group of municipalities alleging that a Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission (PUC) regulation governing the siting of gas meters failed to sufficiently protect historic resources under Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, also known as the Environmental Rights Amendment (ERA). See City of Lancaster, et al. v. Pa. Pub. Util. Comm’n, No. 251 MD 2019 (Pa. Cmwlth. Feb. 21, 2020). Read More »

They say stigmas are social constructs. In court, however, they must be based on relevant and objective evidence, so says the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in a precedential opinion involving the amount of compensation owed to private landowners for easements over their properties to allow the installation of an underground pipeline. In UGI Sunbury LLC v. A Permanent Easement for 2.4645 Acres, Nos. 18-3126, 18-3127 (Feb. 11, 2020), the appellant UGI Sunbury, LLC (UGI) sought vacatur of a decision from the District Court of the Middle District of Pennsylvania in a condemnation proceeding under the Natural Gas Act, which based the compensation awarded in part on a claim that the public perception of natural gas pipelines on or near real property will permanently reduce the value of the property due to the stigma that the property is “damaged goods.” While the Third Circuit did not opine on the validity of the theory in general, it did find that the expert testimony upon which the award was based utterly failed to meet the requirements of Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993), and thus should not have been admitted nor relied upon.  Read More »

In a split 3-2 decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that the rule of capture applies to gas wells completed using hydraulic fracturing, though the Court’s holding was limited by the undeveloped factual record in the case. See Briggs v. Southwestern Energy Production Co., No. 63 MAP 2018 (Pa. Jan. 22, 2020). With the Court’s decision, Pennsylvania joins Texas and other states that have applied the rule of capture to hydraulic fracturing. The narrow scope of the Court’s holding, however, makes it almost certain that neighboring landowners will continue to assert trespass and conversion claims against developers in Pennsylvania engaging in hydraulic fracturing until the law is further developed. Read More »

On January 15, 2020, Judge Gerald J. Pappert of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania dismissed two groups of private plaintiffs’ claims against the United States Navy regarding perfluorocarbon contamination, PFOS and PFOA, in drinking water supplies around former Navy facilities in Bucks and Montgomery Counties, Pennsylvania. Giovanni v. U.S. Dept. of Navy, No. 16-4873, 17-765, -- F.Supp.3d --, 2020 WL 224683 (E.D. Pa. Jan. 15, 2020). Read More »

Last month in a 2-1 split, the Third Circuit held that state, not federal, law determined how much a landowner was entitled to as just compensation in condemnation proceedings brought by private entities under the Natural Gas Act of 1938. Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co., LLC v. Permanent Easement for 7.053 Acres, No. 17-3700 (3d Cir. July 23, 2019). The precedential decision will force natural gas companies to account for differences in state law in negotiations with landowners over what constitutes “just compensation” for a taking.   Read More »

On Monday, July 29, 2019, a seven-judge panel of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, in Pa. Envtl. Defense Found. v. Commonwealth, No. 228 M.D. 2012 (Pa. Cmwlth. July 29, 2019) (“PEDF III”), held that two-thirds of rental payments and up-front bonuses received by the Commonwealth as proceeds from oil and gas leases on state forest and park lands must be reserved for conservation purposes under Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, also called the Environmental Rights Amendment (“ERA”). Read More »

On June 21, 2019, the Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision in Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, shaking up Fifth Amendment takings claim jurisprudence. Knick v. Township of Scott, Pennsylvania, 139 S.Ct. 2162 (2019). In Knick, the Court held that a property owner has an actionable Fifth Amendment takings claim at the moment a state or local government takes her property without paying just compensation, and that violation of the Fifth Amendment can be remedied in federal court via a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The ruling overturned years of precedent that held that a plaintiff could not bring a takings claim in federal court against a state or local government until she had first exhausted her state court remedies. Knick specifically overruled Williamson County, the 1985 case which established the state-litigation requirement. Williamson County Regional Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank of Johnson City, 473 U.S. 172 (1985). Read More »