For an organization to sue to redress a perceived wrong, the organization must demonstrate that it has standing to sue, meaning that it is the proper party to bring the claim.   One of the key requirements of standing is that the plaintiff must show that he or she will be or is likely to be injured by the action objected to.  Environmental groups often demonstrate…

Two recent Appellate Division decisions addressed segmentation claims and concluded that there cannot be segmentation unless there is a plan. Under SEQRA (the State Environmental Quality Review Act), it is illegal to take a project that may have significant impacts and break it in to smaller parts (segments) for environmental review purposes, each of which taken alone is not likely to have significant impacts. The…

A recent decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals highlights the boundary between environmental law and corporate law. US v Sterling Centercorp Inc., 2020 WL 5885920 (10/5/20). The case arose out of a Superfund Site in California that was the subject of a number of corporate transactions. Defendant Sterling was the corporate parent of Keystone Copper Corporation, a corporation that owned the site from…

My post listing the top 5 misconceptions about environmental law received positive feedback, so I am continuing it in this post, listing misconceptions 6 through 10. The top 5 were statements that many transactional attorneys believe, but are false. Misconceptions 6-10, on the other hand, are sometimes true. 6. The investigation found contamination, so we must report it to the State. That statement is sometimes…

In Lijam, LLC v General Electric Company, 2019 WL 1011021 (March 2019), neighbors of a contaminated site sued under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), claiming the site “may present an imminent and substantial danger to health or the environment.”  The neighbors won on summary judgement, with the court concluding that General Electric was liable under RCRA.  The court then denied the neighbors’ request…