If you read this blog for tips on how to advance your practice, or protect your employer from surprises, or keep your job (which may be the same thing), stop reading. Today is for introspection and evaluation. We went off this weekend to western Maryland to go camping. Two things struck us. The 15 Mile Creek Campground on the C&O Canal run by the National Park Service was closed. The sign said "Due to Emergency Conditions."  We suppose it is an emergency when the richest nation in the world puts itself in a position where people have to consider whether it will default. A colleague d...

You know it is not going well when the court cites the Constitution at you in a breach of contract case.  But so it went in DeCosta v. Allstate Insurance Co., where the First Circuit last Friday reversed the trial court and granted summary judgment to Allstate on a suit involving a Standard Flood Insurance Policy (SFIP) under the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). The case was relatively simple on both its facts and on the law.  DeCosta suffered a flood loss in 2009 and tendered his claim to his flood insurer, Allstate, who wrote coverage under the Write-Your-Own program of th...

Yesterday, Governor Jack Markell issued Executive Order No. 41, “Preparing Delaware for Emerging Climate Impacts and Seizing Economic Opportunities from Reducing Emissions.”  In many climate change discussions there exists an implied or overt assumption that society must choose between the economy and the climate.  Consistent with a theme that has resurfaced throughout his tenure as Governor, in Executive Order No. 41 Governor Markell explicitly rejects that choice:  “initiatives to responsibly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and prepare Delaware for climate im...

One of the guidelines for this blog is to stay away from extreme views. The effects of climate change do not need to be amplified to merit reasoned discussion and thoughtful application of what we as lawyers do. So what were we to do with a request from Simon & Schuster that we provide a pre-release review of Rivers by Michael Faris Smith, an "incidence of fiction presenting an all-too-real possibility." "All-too-real" meaning "a series of devastating storms has pummeled the American Southeast in the years since Hurricane Katrina. The federal government has drawn a boundary known as the Li...

By J. Wylie Donald and Patrick Reilly Two years ago, we observed a potentially startling development in climate change litigation: “On Monday, May 4, [2011] in state courts across the nation lawyers representing children and young adults filed (and apparently will continue to file) suits seeking to compel State governments to recognize the application of the public trust doctrine to greenhouse gas emissions and to take action to abate those emissions.” These lawsuits were coordinated by two groups, Our Children’s Trust and Kids vs. Global Warming, and sought to apply th...

Can a community condemn shorefront cottages where the beach has eroded at 8 feet per year and the cottages interfere with emergency responders traveling along the beach?  Based on the Fourth Circuit's decision at the end of last month in Sansotta v Town of Nags Head we just don't know. What we do know is that a municipality cannot play both ends of the law against the middle to address the problem. Let us explain.  Nags Head is a shore community of about 2500 souls (soaring to 40,000 in the summer) on North Carolina's Outer Banks. Municipal ordinances provide that a buildi...

If you were a municipality that had to take action and condemn private property for the public good to avert disaster, before you got to court you would be particularly pleased to be able to say, "See, I told you so," pointing to an avoided calamity.  When one New Jersey beachfront community, the Borough of Harvey Cedars, took such action, the longed-for serendipity avoided both the trial and intermediate appellate courts. But then fortune smiled and the Borough enjoyed a favorable result before the New Jersey Supreme Court in Borough of Harvey Cedars v. Karan, decided just this mont...

Ground zero for climate change and rising sea levels in the United States is not a status to which any state aspires.  Florida distastefully remembers 2005 when 4 hurricanes – Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne - roared ashore, all within six weeks.   Delaware worries that 8-11% of the state will be submerged by 2100.  Today we learned that Louisiana’s concerns over rising sea levels and hurricanes have resulted in an enormous lawsuit, Board of Commissioners v. Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co LLC, against 100 oil and gas companies based on their activities i...

The greenhouse gas rule you’ve never heard of, the Deferral Rule, was shot down (barely) by the D.C. Circuit last week.  See Center for Biological Diversity v. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 11-1101 (D.C. Cir., July 12, 2013).   The opinion offers a wonderful primer on greenhouse gas rulemaking and describes the Timing Rule, the Tailpipe Rule and the Tailoring Rule.  It also explains in great detail numerous doctrines concerning agency rulemaking.  And it balances on the edge of a knife.  There is an opinion (Tatel, J.).  There is a concurring opi...

Another six months have passed and it is time for our semi-annual look at climate change and its intersection with the law.  Here are some highlights of the last six months: 1.  The Administration’s Focus.  After months of silence in the 2012 presidential campaign, President Obama rejuvenated his administration’s commitment to addressing climate change.  We heard in his inaugural address:   “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the...