The arrival of spring heralds the end of the regular session for Virginia’s legislature. While the General Assembly will return for a veto session in a few weeks (and may be forced to return for a special session if budget issues are not ironed out), the end of the regular session is a good opportunity [...]
Anyone who testifies regularly as an expert witness, will be expected to, or is responsible for obtaining expert reports that may be used in litigation, should know what is expected as far as the quality of expert reports in the jurisdiction in which they are working in order to avoid having reports excluded. In the [...]
Wetlands are a particularly important and fragile ecological resource. In recognition of that, the federal government has long interpreted the Clean Water Act broadly to protect not only wetlands that are directly connected to traditional waterways but also those more remote wetlands that have some connection to such waterways. In Sackett v. EPA, the Supreme [...]
The U.S. Supreme Court issued its opinion on Penneast Pipeline Co., v. New Jersey on June 29, 2021. In its 5-4 decision, one surprisingly not split across party lines, the Court addressed whether it is constitutional for the Federal Government to grant a pipeline company authority to condemn necessary rights-of-way in which a State [...]
The Supreme Court of the U.S. is expected to rule soon in a case that could have a profound impact on the development of natural gas pipelines. The case, PennEast Pipeline Co., LLC v. New Jersey, involves a natural gas pipeline project in the northeast. PennEast obtained a certificate of public convenience and necessity from [...]
In the continuing litigation over the construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in Western Virginia, a federal trial court excluded a landowner’s supplement to its expert’s opinion on the ground that it contained new opinions that were not disclosed by the deadline for such reports set forth in the scheduling order. The appraiser, Dennis [...]
Sometimes, when facing long odds, you just have to swing for the fences and hope for the best. Landowners in the path of the Mountain Valley Pipeline took just such a wild swing with a lawsuit they filed in a D.C. federal court. They sought a ruling that Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC, lacked the [...]