Articles

Weekly litigation report — December 22, 2018

December 22, 2018 | By JAMES BURLING

PLF asks Supreme Court to hear Alaska permafrost case This week, PLF filed a petition asking the United States Supreme Court to review Tin Cup, LLC v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, a case that asks whether the federal government can control land uses on buried frozen permafrost just because the government claims such permafrost is a “navig ...

Articles

Joe Robertson’s Clean Water Act case draws friends at Supreme Court

December 13, 2018 | By TONY FRANCOIS

This week six friend of the court briefs were filed asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear Joe Robertson’s Clean Water Act case. Robertson, a 77-year-old Navy veteran in the small town of Basin, Montana, was unjustly convicted of Clean Water Act violations for digging firefighting ponds to protect his property. The prosecution turned on ̷ ...

Articles

President Trump tells EPA to drain the swamp; EPA says ‘not so much’

December 13, 2018 | By TONY FRANCOIS

PLF client John Duarte joined the crew on Fox and Friends this morning to talk about being prosecuted by the Justice Department and the Department of the Army under the Clean Water Act, merely for plowing his company’s farm: The five-year ordeal culminated in Duarte Nursery settling with the government for $1.1 million to avoid … ...

Articles

How to find out if the EPA’s ‘navigable waters’ regulations affect you

November 08, 2018 | By TONY FRANCOIS

In light of Joe Robertson’s appeal of his Clean Water Act conviction to the U.S. Supreme Court, readers might be wondering if any foot-wide ditches on their property are also “navigable,” as the EPA imaginatively re-interprets that word. As it turns out, the answer depends on what state you live in. Here’s what you need  ...

Articles

Joe Robertson appeals his navigable waters conviction to Supreme Court

November 07, 2018 | By TONY FRANCOIS

PLF client Joe Robertson lives deep in the Montana woods at the edge of a national forest, an area increasingly prone to destructive, life-threatening fires. The only available water supply to fight fires near his property is the couple of garden hoses of flow in a foot-wide, foot-deep nameless channel that flows through a clearing … ...

Articles

Weekly litigation report — August 18, 2018

August 18, 2018 | By JAMES BURLING

Opening day for SCOTUS nears as PLF readies to throw first pitch This week Pacific Legal Foundation filed its Reply Brief in Weyerhaeuser v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, a case that arises from the Fifth Circuit and involves our client Edward Poitevent’s property in the deep woods of Louisiana. The Supreme Court of the … ...

Articles

Weekly litigation update — July 28, 2016

July 28, 2018 | By JAMES BURLING

Appeal filed to rescue vaping lawsuit from being sucked into the Swamp When PLF first developed its litigation strategy to challenge unconstitutionally promulgated rules, a core component of that strategy was filing three simultaneous lawsuits in three district courts challenging the FDA’s vaping regulation. But the federal government would p ...

Articles

EPA ignores PLF advice on Congressional Review Act and WOTUS

February 15, 2018 | By TONY FRANCOIS

Last year, following President Trump’s executive order directing EPA to rewrite its disastrous 2015 regulation which magically redefined millions of acres of dry land across the nation as federally protected navigable waterways, PLF offered EPA some advice, not only on how to rewrite the rule to make it conform to the limits of the Clean  ...

Articles

Weekly litigation report — October 28, 2017

October 28, 2017 | By JAMES BURLING

City sells townhouse, demolishes it, and then sends new owner bill for the demolition Representing David and Lourdes Garrett, PLF filed  this opening brief in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to challenge New Orleans’ unconstitutional destruction of a townhouse on their property. The facts are outrageous: They bought property from the city ...