Natural Resource Damages & Environmental Justice
Join Kelley Drye for a seminar on the latest regulatory developments that are likely to usher in expansive new liability for the release and remediation of some of the most widely utilized per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances...more
This week’s highly anticipated decision of the Alberta Court of Appeal in Qualex-Landmark Towers Inc v 12-10 Capital Corp, 2024 ABCA 115 [Qualex] limits the application of Orphan Well Association v Grant Thornton Ltd, 2019...more
Abstract - Determining the amount of restoration needed to compensate the public for injury to natural resources is central to estimating natural resource damages (NRDs). Formal restoration scaling methods have not...more
As a general rule, the law will not allow plaintiffs to sit on legal rights indefinitely. Superfund actions are no exception. The 6th Circuit recently applied this principle, finding a declaratory judgment of liability...more
In May 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in Territory of Guam v. United States, 593 U.S. __ (2021), on the issue of whether a settlement resolving environmental liabilities was sufficient to establish a right of contribution for...more
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a party’s right to contribution claims under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA”) after entering into a settlement arises...more
In siding with the Territory of Guam in its dispute with the United States over costs to clean up the Ordot Landfill, the Supreme Court has resolved a circuit court split over which types of administrative settlements trigger...more
Does a consent decree under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) trigger a three-year limitation period to bring a contribution claim under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (“CERCLA”) when the...more
Last week, in its unanimous decision Guam v. United States, No. 20-382, the United States Supreme Court attempted to clarify a statutory question regarding the right to seek contribution that has been a source of uncertainty...more
In Territory of Guam v. United States, the Supreme Court unanimously held that claims for contribution under Section 113(f)(3)(B) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) require...more
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Guam v. United States, clarifying when contribution actions under CERCLA may be brought. In a unanimous decision overturning the D.C. Circuit, the Court held that a...more
Reversing the US Court of Appeals for DC Circuit, a unanimous US Supreme Court held that Guam’s settlement of Clean Water Act liabilities did not give rise to and trigger the statute of limitations to bring a Comprehensive...more
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that a settlement of Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA”)-specific liability is required to give rise to a contribution action...more
On May 24, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in the Territory of Guam v. United States case. At issue was whether Guam could maintain a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act...more
On May 24, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Guam v. United States, holding that contribution under CERCLA does not arise until there is a CERCLA-specific liability, even if there is a settlement that resolves liability...more
On May 24, the Supreme Court weighed in on an issue that for decades has bedeviled litigants under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA): When can potentially responsible parties...more
The Canadian Institute’s advanced conference on Contaminated Sites Liability & Litigation Risk takes a deep dive into the most critical challenges affecting land developers, real estate and legal professionals, and...more
The federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (“CERCLA”), also known as the Superfund law, has been used successfully to clean up abandoned industrial sites across the country....more
PFAS, noted for its use in older non-stick cookware, fabric stain preventers, and numerous other industrial applications, is fast becoming a major environmental contaminant that is expensive to investigate and even more...more
Because of the increasing frequency of significant, often multimillion-dollar, environmental claims against businesses and individuals under environmental statutes such as the Comprehensive Environmental Response,...more
The natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) process has evolved since its inception in the late 1970s. The innovations keep coming. In 2016, a third-party “credit banking” mechanism was used for the first time to settle...more
The Sixth Circuit has affirmed an order confirming an arbitration award regarding indemnification obligations for environmental cleanup owed by William Farley toward the Eaton Corporation arising out of the 1986 sale of an...more
On May 9, 2016, Kansas Governor Sam Brownback signed into law the Contaminated Property Redevelopment Act (the “Act”). The goal of this Act is to allow purchasers in Kansas to acquire real property with pre-existing...more
Everyone is familiar with the two little words - “as is” - that pop up in real estate contracts. The “as is” clause is a means of allocating risk between seller and buyer. Generally, a seller who sells property “as is” will...more
Two Massachusetts municipalities are down but not out in their attempts to hold manufacturers of PCBs responsible for the environmental effects of PCB-containing products decades later. ...more