Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc.

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Friends of the Earth, Inc., et al. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc.
Seal of the United States Supreme Court.svg
Argued October 12, 1999
Decided January 12, 2000
Full case nameFriends of the Earth, Incorporated, et al. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Incorporated
Citations528 U.S. 167 ( more )
120 S. Ct. 693; 145 L. Ed. 2d 610; 2000 U.S. LEXIS 501; 49 ERC (BNA) 1769; 163 A.L.R. Fed. 749; 2000 Cal. Daily Op. Service 289; 2000 Daily Journal DAR 375; 30 ELR 20246; 1999 Colo. J. C.A.R. 142; 13 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 37
Case history
Prior956 F. Supp. 588 (D.S.C. 1997); vacated and remanded, 149 F.3d 303 (4th Cir. 1998); cert. granted, 525 U.S. 1176(1999).
Holding
Plaintiff residents in the area of North Tyger River had standing to sue an industrial polluter against whom various deterrent civil penalties were being pursued.
Court membership
Chief Justice
William Rehnquist
Associate Justices
John P. Stevens  · Sandra Day O'Connor
Antonin Scalia  · Anthony Kennedy
David Souter  · Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg  · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
MajorityGinsburg, joined by Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, Breyer
ConcurrenceStevens
ConcurrenceKennedy
DissentScalia, joined by Thomas
Laws applied
U.S. Const. Art. III

Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc., 528 U.S. 167 (2000), was a United States Supreme Court case that addressed the law regarding standing to sue and mootness.

Contents

The Court held that the plaintiff residents in the area of South Carolina's North Tyger River had standing to sue an industrial polluter, against whom various deterrent civil penalties were being pursued. [1] Standing was properly based on the fact that the residents alleged that they would have used the river for recreational purposes, but could not because of the pollution. [2]

The defendant polluter also claimed that the case was moot because it had ceased polluting, and had closed the factory responsible for the pollution complained of. The Court noted that the polluter still retained its license to operate such a factory, and could reopen similar operations elsewhere if not deterred by the fine sought. Therefore, the case was held not to be moot. [2]

The Supreme Court's majority in Friends ruled that plaintiffs did not need to prove an actual (particular) harm to residents. Writing for the majority, Ruth Bader Ginsburg held that injury to the plaintiff came from lessening the "aesthetic and recreational values of the area" for residents and users of the river because of their knowledge of Laidlaw's repeated violations of its clean water permit. [2]

In addition, the case held that a civil penalty could be enforced against an entity even though the interests protected were private. The court agreed with Congress in holding that civil penalties in the Clean Water Act cases "do more than promote immediate compliance by limiting the defendant's economic incentive to delay its attainment of permit limits; they also deter future violations." [1]

The 7–2 decision was written by Justice Ginsburg, and joined by Justices Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter, and Breyer. Stevens and Kennedy each filed a concurring opinion. Justice Scalia wrote a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justice Thomas. [1]

See also

Related Research Articles

A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action originated in the United States and is still predominantly a US phenomenon, but Canada, as well as several European countries with civil law, have made changes in recent years to allow consumer organizations to bring claims on behalf of consumers.

In law, standing or locus standi is a condition that a party seeking a legal remedy must show they have, by demonstrating to the court, sufficient connection to and harm from the law or action challenged to support that party's participation in the case. A party has standing in the following situations:

Mootness Legal term on the status of a matter

The terms moot and mootness are used in both in English and American law, although with different meanings.

Strategic lawsuits against public participation, or strategic litigation against public participation, are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.

Craig v. Boren, 429 U.S. 190 (1976), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court ruling that statutory or administrative sex classifications were subject to intermediate scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

Forum non conveniens (FNC) is a mostly common law legal doctrine through which a court acknowledges that another forum or court where the case might have been brought is a more appropriate venue for a legal case, and transfers the case to such a forum. A change of venue might be ordered, for example, to transfer a case to a jurisdiction within which an accident or incident underlying the litigation occurred and where all the witnesses reside.

Warner-Jenkinson Company, Inc. v. Hilton Davis Chemical Co., 520 U.S. 17 (1997), was a United States Supreme Court decision in the area of patent law, affirming the continued vitality of the doctrine of equivalents while making some important refinements to the doctrine.

Case or Controversy Clause Clause of the U.S. Constitution regarding judicial review

The Supreme Court of the United States has interpreted the Case or Controversy Clause of Article III of the United States Constitution as embodying two distinct limitations on exercise of judicial review: a bar on the issuance of advisory opinions, and a requirement that parties must have standing.

BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996), was a United States Supreme Court case limiting punitive damages under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992), was a landmark Supreme Court of the United States decision, handed down on June 12, 1992, that heightened standing requirements under Article III of the United States Constitution. It is "one of the most influential cases in modern environmental standing jurisprudence." Lily Henning of the Legal Times stated that:

DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Cuno, 547 U.S. 332 (2006), is a United States Supreme Court case involving the standing of taxpayers to challenge state tax laws in federal court. The Court unanimously ruled that state taxpayers did not have standing under Article III of the United States Constitution to challenge state tax or spending decisions simply by virtue of their status as taxpayers. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the majority opinion, which was joined by all of the justices except for Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who concurred separately.

Friends of the Earth U.S. is a non-governmental environmental organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., founded in 1969 by environmentalist David Brower. Friends of the Earth U.S. campaigns on issues including climate change, pollution, nuclear technology, genetic engineering, deforestation, pesticides, food and agriculture and economic policy. It is a founding member of Friends of the Earth International.

Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U.S. 517 (1994), was a United States Supreme Court case that addressed the standards governing awards of attorneys' fees in copyright cases. The Copyright Act of 1976 authorizes, but does not require, the court to award attorneys' fees to "the prevailing party" in a copyright action. In Fogerty, the Court held that such attorneys'-fees awards are discretionary, and that the same standards should be applied in the case of a prevailing plaintiff and a prevailing defendant.

<i>Anderson v. Cryovac, Inc.</i>

Anderson v. Cryovac was a federal lawsuit concerning toxic contamination of groundwater in 1986 in Woburn, Massachusetts.

<i>Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp.</i>

Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp., No. 4:08-cv-01138, is a lawsuit filed on February 26, 2008, in a United States district court. The suit, based on the common law theory of nuisance, claims monetary damages from the energy industry for the destruction of Kivalina, Alaska by flooding caused by climate change. The damage estimates made by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Government Accountability Office are placed between $95 million and $400 million. This lawsuit is an example of greenhouse gas emission liability.

American Electric Power Company v. Connecticut, 564 U.S. 410 (2011), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court, in an 8–0 decision, held that corporations cannot be sued for greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) under federal common law, primarily because the Clean Air Act (CAA) delegates the management of carbon dioxide and other GHG emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Brought to court in July 2004 in the Southern District of New York, this was the first global warming case based on a public nuisance claim.

A private attorney general is an informal term originating in common law jurisdictions for a private attorney who brings a lawsuit claiming it to be in the public interest, i.e., benefiting the general public and not just the plaintiff, on behalf of a citizen or group of citizens. The attorney may, at the equitable discretion of the court, be entitled to recover attorney's fees if they prevail. The rationale behind this principle is to provide extra incentive to private attorneys to pursue suits that may be of benefit to society at large. Private attorney general suits are commonly, though not always, brought as class actions in jurisdictions that permit the certification of class action lawsuits.

McCastle v. Rollins is a case that was filed on behalf of the residents of Alsen, Louisiana against Rollins Environmental Services, Inc., and. Although the decision in this case allowed the plaintiffs within this community to be certified as a class, and allowed them to be viewed as a unit when filing their lawsuit, and thereby reversing the decision that had been made at the trial and appellate level, the case was not reheard in the lower courts. Instead, Rollins Environmental Services, Inc. settled with the plaintiffs outside of court in 1987. Although this case is primarily cited for what a group of people need to do in order to obtain class certification, it is also often cited as one of the pivotal moments in the Environmental justice grass roots movement that has been occurring within communities of color. The people involved in the suit look at the way in which their community was disproportionately impacted by toxic waste polluters in light of their race and class, in comparison to communities that are composed of people who are racially and economically privileged and advocated for more considerate treatment by state regulators and operators of waste disposal plants. Through looking at the development of the McCastle v. Rollins lawsuit, one can see the way in which class, race, legal claims, community activism, public health and environmentalism can be viewed and used in conjunction with one another to protect the rights of people living within a given community.

Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States clarified whether a case becomes moot when a party provides a settlement offer that satisfies a named plaintiff's claims in a class action suit and whether a government contractor is entitled to "derivative sovereign immunity".

Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court vacated and remanded a ruling by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on the basis that the Ninth Circuit had not properly determined whether the plaintiff has suffered an "injury-in-fact" when analyzing whether he had standing to bring his case in federal court. The Court did not discuss whether "the Ninth Circuit’s ultimate conclusion — that Robins adequately alleged an injury in fact — was correct."

References

  1. 1 2 3 Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc., 528 U.S. 167 (2000).
  2. 1 2 3 NOBLE, JAMES M. (2002). "Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw and the Increasingly Broad Standard for Citizen Standing to Sue in Environmental Litigation". Natural Resources Journal. 42 (2): 415–432. ISSN   0028-0739.