Environmental Appellate Litigation

Effective appellate advocacy on environmental issues is a distinct discipline. It requires a unique skillset that includes exceptional analytical ability, first rate legal research and writing skills, and perhaps most importantly, the ability to inform and persuade on even the most sophisticated or complex environmental issue, ruling or regulation.

These skills are earned, not learned, and we apply them throughout the litigation and appeals process to:

• Frame and then preserve issues at trial for appellate review
• Advise clients on the best appellate issues and strategies 
• Craft and present straightforward and compelling briefs and oral arguments 
• Serve as appellate counsel subsequent to another firm’s involvement at trial

Our environmental appellate advocates have a depth of experience that few firms can match. For decades, our attorneys have been at the forefront in appeals involving most major federal environmental statutes, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Clean Water Act (CWA), National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and Endangered Species Act (ESA). Our appellate attorneys have decades of experience in state court appellate matters, and no other law firm has comparable experience in the appellate review of decisions under California’s unique panoply of environmental statutes, including the California Coastal Act (CCA), California Administrative Procedure Act (CAPA), California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and Proposition 65. In fact, over one recent 18-month period, our attorneys racked up 14 trial and appellate victories, defeating CEQA challenges to several commercial developments and water and transportation projects.

• Defended U.S. Pipe & Foundry Co. before the Eleventh Circuit to secure a reversal of district court denial of removal of putative class action on Class Action Fairness Act grounds. 
• Successfully argued for Bank of America that the Eleventh Circuit affirm a CERCLA motion to dismiss based on statutory exclusion for lenders. 
• The firm represented the Water Replenishment District of Southern California in an action and appeal that involved a motion brought by the Water Replenishment District of Southern California, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and other parties to an existing water rights judgment to provide for use of the storage space in the Central Groundwater Basin. 
•  On behalf of Playa Capital Company LLC, successfully persuaded the California 2nd District Court of Appeal to uphold approval of certain elements of our client’s massive Playa Vista mixed-use project known as The Village and persuaded the California Supreme Court to deny further review. 
• Represented the Autry National Center of the American West in securing CEQA clearance and other entitlements for new gallery space in the City of Burbank as part of its plan to supplement its well-known museum in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. The firm also secured an important appellate court decision for the Autry that will allow the Autry to exhibit a greater number of pieces from its American Indian Collection at its Griffith Park Museum in the City of Los Angeles. Overcoming opposition from a local neighborhood group, our attorneys successfully persuaded the California 2nd District Court of Appeal that review was not required for the Autry’s project under CEQA. 
• On behalf of Malibu Bay Company, persuaded the California 2nd District Court of Appeal and the California Supreme Court to uphold an amendment to Malibu’s coastal program, pushing forward a small housing subdivision on the beachfront and denying various CEQA claims. 
• Successfully defended the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority in an appeal to the Ninth Circuit seeking to block a new highway linking the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.

Other Representative Matters

• Argued and won a landmark property rights case before the U.S. Supreme Court (Koontz v. St. Johns River Water Management District) involving an agency’s unconstitutional condition on the issuance of wetland permits. 
• Served as lead attorney in a pair of CERCLA cases before the Second Circuit that overruled a prior decision and reinstated the rule that, even in the environmental context, an asset purchaser is not liable for an asset seller’s liabilities and affirmed that New York follows the traditional common law rules of successor liability. (New York v. National Service Industries) 
• Successfully defended trial court grant of summary judgment before the Eleventh Circuit, affirmed based on statutory contribution protection. (Solutia v. McWane) 
• Secured California Supreme Court review in a landmark case (Lynch v. California Coastal Commission) concerning, among other things, the right of project applicants to simultaneously proceed with a project and challenge permit conditions in court. 
• Argued and won a case holding, among other things, that a project applicant is not bound by conditions in a permit whose benefits the applicant does not take (Bowman v. California Coastal Commission). 
• Served as lead attorney in Sackett v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, in which the U.S. Supreme Court held that landowners may obtain judicial review of compliance orders issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act. 
• Served as lead attorney in Barnum Timber Co. v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, in which the Ninth Circuit held that landowners have a right to challenge environmental regulations that reduce their property values. 
• Represented Atlantic Richfield Company in a case before the California 4th District Court of Appeal that established the statute of limitations under Proposition 65 (Shamsian v. Atlantic Richfield Company).