Also known as: environmental laws · env. law
Written by attorneys — see sources below.
The field of law dealing with the maintenance and protection of the environment. It encompasses federal, state, and local laws, rules, regulations, and ordinances relating to environmental protection, including requirements for inspections, abatement of violations, and assignment of liability for harm.
Evergreen Bank serves as trustee of a trust holding industrial property. A tenant's operations cause hazardous waste to leak into groundwater, triggering an enforcement action under environmental statutes. Because the bank took no part in the tenant's activities and exercised no personal control over the polluting conduct, it faces no personal liability for the violation.
Elena Estrada owns beachfront lots she purchased for residential construction. State environmental rules enacted after her purchase bar all building to protect dunes and prevent erosion. The rules leave the lots without any economically beneficial use, prompting a claim that the restrictions exceed regulatory authority.
In 1986, petitioner David H. Lucas purchased two residential lots on the Isle of Palms in Charleston County, South Carolina, for $975,000. He intended to construct single-family homes on the parcels, which at the time were zoned for such use and required no building permit for development. No portion of the lots qualified as a critical area under then-existing coastal zone legislation. Subsequently, in 1988, the South Carolina Legislature enacted the Beachfront Management Act. The legislation established a baseline and prohibited construction of occupable improvements seaward of a line drawn 20 feet landward of that baseline, directly affecting Lucas's parcels by barring any permanent habitable structures. Lucas filed an action in the Court of Common Pleas alleging that the Act's restrictions effected a taking of his property without just compensation. Following a bench trial, the court determined that the prohibition rendered the lots valueless and ordered the state to pay just compensation in the amount of $1,232,387.50. The Supreme Court of South Carolina reversed the trial court's judgment. It accepted the legislature's findings that new construction threatened public resources and concluded that a regulation designed to prevent serious public harm could not constitute a taking. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari to review the South Carolina Supreme Court's decision.
View caseA trustee faces personal liability for a violation of environmental law only when the trustee is personally at fault. Mere ownership or control of the property does not trigger liability absent personal wrongdoing.
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A trustee may inspect trust property for environmental compliance, take steps to prevent or remedy violations, decline to accept burdened property, compromise claims, and pay related expenses.
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Corporate officers must promptly report material information about potential environmental violations to senior management or the board. Failure to escalate credible reports of unlawful discharges can breach the duty to keep decision makers informed.
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…of law that "straddles the legal universe, virtually defies synthesis, and generates case law to suit every taste." W. Rodgers, Environmental Law § 2.4, p. 48 (1986) (footnotes omitted). The Court itself has noted that "nuisance concepts" are "often vague and indeterminate." Milwaukee v. Illinois , 451 U. S. 304, 317…