In Supreme Court to Hear False Claims Act “Implied Certification” Appeal, we provide a primer for the oral argument that will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on April 19, 2016 in Universal Health Services v. United States ex rel. Escobar, No. 15-7. The Court is expected to resolve the…
Properly interpreting CERCLA’s statute of limitations often presents vexing problems, and never more so than when claims for natural resource damages (NRD) are filed. As explained several years ago by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Asarco, Inc., ordinarily a claim for NRD must be filed within three years…
The courts have been busy issuing significant Endangered Species Act rulings. In the latest decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in Defenders of Wildlife and Center for Biological Diversity v. Jewell, issued a unanimous ruling which affirmed the lower court’s decision that the U.S. Fish and…
In REIT Citizenship and the Impact of Americold Realty Trust on Jurisdictional Challenges, we discuss the Supreme Court’s unanimously ruling in Americold Realty Trust v. ConAgra Foods, Inc. that unincorporated entities organized as “real estate investment trusts” (REITs) under Maryland law are citizens of every state in which at least one…
EPA has spent almost 40 years wrestling with the definition of “solid waste” for purposes of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 42 U.S.C. § 6901 et seq. (RCRA). The statutory definition of the term contemplates that it includes “any garbage, refuse, sludge from a waste treatment plant, water supply treatment plant, or air pollution control…
In Fabozzi v. Lexington Insurance Company, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has reaffirmed that ambiguities in an insurance policy must be construed against the insurer. The Fabozzis were renovating their home when they learned that its interior walls were so rotted that the entire house…
In our post Contractor Advertising in the Age of Social Media, we promised you a by-no-means exhaustive resource for the various laws, regulations and guidance on social media “advertising” for contractors throughout the United States. The following list is a state-by-state resource to help one get started navigating the never-uniform and always changing contractor…
Most states and, in some cases, cities that require a person to obtain a license, or register, to perform work as a contractor or specialty contractor (e.g., electrical, HVAC, plumbing, other specialized trade work) regulate what disclosures are required when the contractor advertises its services. Most commonly these laws or rules require the contractor to…
Planning and constructing new power plants that will employ new technologies, especially those substantially funded by the federal government, can be a challenging business. Whenever a new law, regulation or agency process goes into effect, industry and legal observers await the often inevitable legal challenges that will arise. For obvious…
Good news for those who respond to and engage in oil spill clean up efforts. In a ruling released on February 16, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, in In re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig “Deepwater Horizon” in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20,…