Justia U.S. Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Los Angeles County Flood Control District operates a “municipal separate storm sewer system” (MS4) drainage system that collects, transports, and discharges storm water. Because storm water is often heavily polluted, the Clean Water Act (CWA) and regulations require certain MS4 operators to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit before discharging storm water into navigable waters. The District has such a permit for its MS4. Environmental groups filed a citizen suit under the CWA, 33 U. S. C.1365, alleging that water-quality measurements from monitoring stations within the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers demonstrated that the District was violating its permit. The district court granted summary judgment, concluding that the record was insufficient to warrant a finding that the MS4 had discharged storm water containing the standards-exceeding pollutants detected at the downstream monitoring stations. The Ninth Circuit reversed in part, holding that the District was liable for discharge of pollutants that occurred when the polluted water detected at the monitoring stations flowed out of the concrete-lined portions of the rivers, where the monitoring stations are located, into lower, unlined portions of the same rivers. The Supreme Court reversed. The flow of water from an improved portion of a navigable waterway into an unimproved portion of the same waterway does not qualify as a “discharge of a pollutant” under the CWA. View "Los Angeles Cnty. Flood Control Dist. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc." on Justia Law

Arkansas Game and Fish Commission owns and manages the Donaldson Black River Wildlife Management Area, 23,000 acres with multiple hardwood species and used for recreation and hunting. In 1948, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed Clearwater Dam upstream from the Area and adopted the Water Control Manual, setting seasonally varying rates for release of water from the Dam. From 1993-2000, the Corps, at the request of farmers, authorized deviations from the Manual that extended flooding into peak timber growing season. The Commission objected that deviations adversely impacted the Area, and opposed a proposal to make deviations part of the permanent water-release plan. After testing, the Corps abandoned the proposed Manual revision and ceased temporary deviations. The Commission sued, alleging that the deviations caused sustained flooding during growing season and that the cumulative impact of the flooding caused destruction of Area timber and substantial change in the terrain, necessitating costly reclamation. The Claims Court judgment ($5,778,757) in favor of the Commission was reversed by the Federal Circuit, which held that government-induced flooding can support a taking claim only if “permanent or inevitably recurring.” The Supreme Court reversed and remanded. Government-induced flooding of limited duration may be compensable. There is no blanket temporary-flooding exception to Takings Clause jurisprudence and no reason to treat flooding differently than other government intrusions. While the public interests are important, they are not categorically different from interests at stake in other takings cases. When regulation or temporary physical invasion by government interferes with private property, time is a factor in determining the existence of a compensable taking, as are the degree to which the invasion is intended or the foreseeable result of authorized government action, the character of the land, the owner’s “reasonable investment-backed expectations,” and the severity of the interference. View "AR Game & Fish Comm'n v. United States" on Justia Law

The company was convicted of violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for knowingly storing liquid mercury without a permit "on or about September 19, 2002 to October 19, 2004." Violations are punishable by a fine of not more than $50,000 per day, 42 U.S.C. 6928(d). The probation office calculated a maximum fine of $38.1 million, based on 762 days. The company argued that any fine greater than $50,000 would be unconstitutional under Apprendi v. New Jersey, which held that the Sixth Amendment requires that any fact (other than prior conviction) that increases maximum punishment be proved to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The district court held that Apprendi applies to criminal fines, but concluded that the jury found a 762-day violation and imposed a fine of $6 million and a community service obligation of $12 million. The First Circuit affirmed on the ground that Apprendi does not apply to criminal fines. The Supreme Court reversed. Apprendi applies to criminal fines. The "core concern, to reserve to the jury determination of facts that warrant punishment for a specific statutory offense, applies whether the sentence is a criminal fine or imprisonment or death. Dissenters argued that facts relevant to a fine’s amount typically quantify the harm and do not define a separate set of acts for punishment. The majority rejected the assumption that, in determining maximum punishment, there is a constitutionally significant difference between a fact that is an "element" and one that is a "sentencing factor." View "Southern Union Co. v. United States" on Justia Law

Petitioners brought a civil action under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 500 et seq., to challenge the issuance by the EPA of an administrative compliance order under section 309 of the Clean Water Act (Act), 33 U.S.C. 1319. The order asserted that petitioners' property was subject to the Act, and that they have violated its provisions by placing fill material on the property; and on this basis it directed them immediately to restore the property pursuant to an EPA work plan. The Court concluded that the compliance order was final agency action for which there was no adequate remedy other than APA review, and that the Act did not preclude that review. Therefore, the Court reversed the judgment of the Ninth Circuit and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Sackett v. EPA" on Justia Law

This case concerned three rivers which flow through Montana and then beyond its borders. At issue was whether discrete, identifiable segments of these rivers in Montana were nonnavigable, as federal law defined that concept for purposes of determining whether the State acquired title to the riverbeds underlying those segments, when the State entered the Union in 1989. Montana contended that the rivers must be found navigable at the disputed locations. The Court held that the Montana Supreme Court's ruling that Montana owned and could charge for use of the riverbeds at issue was based on an infirm legal understanding of the Court's rules of navigability for title under the equal-footing doctrine. The Montana Supreme Court erred in its treatment of the question of river segments and portage and erred as a matter of law in relying on evidence of present-day primarily recreational use of the Madison River. Because this analysis was sufficient to require reversal, the Court declined to decide whether the State Supreme Court also erred as to the burden of proof regarding navigability. Montana's suggestion that denying the State title to the disputed riverbeds would undermine the public trust doctrine underscored its misapprehension of the equal-footing and public trust doctrines. Finally, the reliance by petitioner and its predecessors in title on the State's long failure to assert title to the riverbeds was some evidence supporting the conclusion that the river segments over those beds were nonnavigable for purposes of the equal-footing doctrine. Accordingly, the judgment was reversed. View "PPL Montana, LLC v. Montana" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, several states, the city of New York, and three private land trusts, sued defendants, four private power companies and the federal Tennessee Valley Authority, alleging that defendants' emissions substantially and unreasonably interfered with public rights in violation of the federal common law of interstate nuisance, or in the alternative, of state tort law. Plaintiffs sought a decree setting carbon-dioxide emissions for each defendant at an initial cap to be further reduced annually. At issue was whether plaintiffs could maintain federal common law public nuisance claims against carbon-dioxide emitters. As a preliminary matter, the Court affirmed, by an equally divided Court, the Second Circuit's exercise of jurisdiction and proceeded to the merits. The Court held that the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. 7401, and the Environmental Protection Act ("Act"), 42 U.S.C. 7411, action the Act authorized displaced any federal common-law right to seek abatement of carbon-dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel fired power plants. The Court also held that the availability vel non of a state lawsuit depended, inter alia, on the preemptive effect of the federal Act. Because none of the parties have briefed preemption or otherwise addressed the availability of a claim under state nuisance law, the matter was left for consideration on remand. Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "American Elec. Power Co., et al. v. Connecticut, et al." on Justia Law

Montana alleged that Wyoming breached Article V(A) of the Yellowstone River Compact ("Compact"), 65 Stat. 666, by allowing its pre-1950 water appropriators to increase their net water consumption by improving the efficiency of their irrigation systems where the new systems employed sprinklers that reduced the amount of wastewater returned to the river, thus depriving Montana's downstream pre-1950 appropriators of water to which they were entitled. At issue was whether Article V(A) allowed Wyoming's pre-1950's water users, diverting the same quantity of water for the same irrigation purpose and acreage as before 1950, to increase their consumption of water by improving their irrigation systems even if it reduced the flow of water to Montana's pre-1950 users. The Court held that Montana's increased-efficiency allegation failed to state a claim for breach of the Compact under Article V(A) where Article V(A) incorporated the ordinary doctrine of appropriation without significant qualification and where, in Wyoming and Montana, that doctrine allowed appropriators to improve their irrigation systems, even to the detriment of downstream appropriators.