United States Tenth Circuit

In a dispute involving a tar-like material plaintiff-railroad alleged defendant moved onto its property, a judgment and award of attorney's fees against plaintiff as well as certain interlocutory orders, are reversed and vacated as: 1) the district court erred in dismissing plaintiff's Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), public nuisance, and abatement claims at the summary judgment stage; and 2) it erred in entering judgment as a matter of law as to plaintiff's private nuisance and unjust enrichment claims.

Appellate Information

• Decided 09/24/2007
• Published 09/25/2007

Judges

• BRISCOE, Circuit Judge., Before HENRY and BRISCOE, Circuit Judges, and ROBINSON, District Judge.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• John Trevor Hammons, Assistant Attorney General, Environmental Protection Unit, Oklahoma City, OK, filed an amicus brief on behalf of the State of Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality, and the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, Amici Curiae.


• For Appellees:
  
• Alok Ahuja, Lathrop & Gage, L.C., Kansas City, MO, (Hugh D. Rice, Rainey, Ross, Rice & Binns, PLLC, Oklahoma City, OK, and David E. Cowen, McLeod, Alexander, Powel & Apffel, Galveston, TX, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiff-Appellant and Cross-Appellee., Linda C. Martin, (Sam P. Daniel and Young H. Pei with her on the briefs), Doerner, Saunders, Daniel and Anderson, L.L.P., Tulsa, OK, for Defendants-Appellees and Cross-Appellants.