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 ...
This morning a California Court of Appeal issued an unfortunate opinion (although given the state of California courts, perhaps an unsurprising one) affirming in full a trial court decision that imposed public trust obligations on the County of Siskiyou’s issuance of groundwater well permits. The decision could have a significant negative imp ...
This morning PLF filed this amicus brief in the California Court of Appeal for the Third District in support of the County of Siskiyou. We asked the Court of Appeal to overturn this superior court decision, which expanded public trust considerations to permits issued for the use of groundwater. Adopting the superior court’s rationale could & ...
Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral argument in Sturgeon v. Frost, in which the issue is whether the National Park Service can regulate activity on property it does not own but is located within the exterior boundaries of a National Park. Several justices were skeptical of the federal government’s argument that ̷ ...
It is ice cold under sunny skies in the nation’s capitol today, as Washington DC braces for yet another storm of the century this coming weekend. It is a fitting setting for the Supreme Court to hear oral argument today in the aptly-captioned Sturgeon v. Frost. In this case, the National Park Service is claiming … ...
We have written (and litigated) at length about the errors of the United States Forest Service, whether that be on forest access, ongoing water rights infringements, or the fire risk that the agency is imposing on its neighboring land owners. So, when the agency does something right, however small, we are obliged to acknowledge it. Last … ...
In a guest column in today’s major Sacramento printed news product, Christopher Thornburg complains that California’s water rights system is inherited from medieval England. He is not really correct about that. California does enjoy a complex system of related water rights doctrines, only some of which have anything to do with English ...
In the course of California’s long drought, state regulators have taken ever more aggressive measures to gain control of local and private water supplies, under cover of emergency declarations from Governor Brown, and emergency regulations adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board. Some of these measures are aimed at requiring addit ...
Lawsuit abuse — Filing without injury PLF filed this letter brief asking the California Supreme Court to review of Animal Legal Defense Fund v. LT Napa Partners—which PLF asked the Supreme Court to overturn an Unfair Competition Law (UCL) case that threatens important civil justice reforms enacted by California voters. Several years a ...