Background: The Casper Aquifer underlies Albany County east of Laramie and supplies drinking water to thousands of city and county residents. Following the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality's (WDEQ) approval of a hydrogeologic Delineation Report, the Albany County Board of County Commissioners (Board) adopted the Casper Aquifer Protection Plan (CAPP) in 2002 and created the Aquifer…
Held: Affirmed on all grounds. Writing for the majority, Justice Gray resolved each issue in the Board’s favor.
Background: S.H.E., an Egyptian national, applied for international protection on 23 January 2026, claiming fear of persecution based on alleged detention and sexual assault in Libya, conscription into the Egyptian military upon return to Egypt, and risk of being killed if perceived as gay. The applicant's solicitors requested the International Protection Appeals Tribunal exercise its power…
Held: Justice Siobhán Phelan granted leave to amend the Statement of Grounds to challenge both the deportation order and refoulement decision, and granted an interlocutory injunction restraining the applicant's deportation pending determination of the proceedings. The court identified multiple substantive failures in the decision-making process.
Background: The dispute arose from a Baltimore City development project known as the Clipper Mill Planned Unit Development. When developer MCB Woodberry Developer, LLC sought approval to amend the PUD to add townhomes and convert a tractor building into a mixed-use project, two homeowners' associations—the Millrace Council and the Clipper Mill Homeowners' Association—opposed the efforts through…
Held: The Supreme Court of Maryland unanimously affirmed the dismissal, holding that the HOAs failed to plead the "special injury" element required to state a claim for malicious use of process. Writing for the Court, Justice Eaves traced the tort's origins to the Statute of Marlborough (1267), which superseded the earlier common-law follow-on action for malicious civil prosecution except in cases…
Background: Monarch Communities, LLC applied to the Township of Montville Zoning Board of Adjustment for a use variance to build a 165-unit senior living facility — combining congregate apartments, assisted living, and memory care — on an eight-acre residentially zoned property at 205-207 Changebridge Road. The parties did not dispute that senior housing qualifies as an…
Held: Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Patterson held that the Sica four-step standard does not fully align with N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70 as amended in 1997, because the statute expressly requires all use variance applicants — including those seeking variances for inherently beneficial uses — to satisfy both negative criteria. The Court revised the fourth step of the Sica procedure to require…
Background: Nano Dimensioning Ltd. is an Israeli public company without a controlling shareholder, traded in the United States through American Depositary Shares (ADS). To defend against hostile takeovers, the company adopted a "poison pill" plan. Under this plan, if any shareholder or group of shareholders acquires more than 9.99% of company shares without board approval, a…
Held: Justice Ruth Ronen affirmed the temporary injunction. The court held that poison pill defense mechanisms, while valid, cannot eliminate shareholders' cognate rights to call special shareholders' meetings. Although the permitted mechanisms regulate how shareholders exercise this right—requiring either board approval or public solicitation—they do not extinguish the underlying right itself. The court found that requiring shareholders to navigate these procedural…
Background: L.H., born in 2014, was the subject of a third CHINS petition filed by Vermont in March 2024. The petition alleged that mother K.M. exposed L.H. to domestic violence and substance abuse, left him unsupervised for extended periods, and failed to address his medical needs, including serious ear infections. Drug paraphernalia was found accessible to…
Held: The Vermont Supreme Court affirmed the family division's order terminating mother's parental rights at initial disposition. Applying the four-factor best-interests analysis under 33 V.S.A. § 5114(a), the trial court had found by clear and convincing evidence that termination served L.H.'s best interests, with the most critical factor being whether mother could resume parental duties within a reasonable time measured from…
Background: In April 2023, Mr Kim purchased 50% of the shares in JAC Korean Barbecue Pty Ltd from Mr Lee for $80,000. The single-page agreement was drafted in English by Mr Lee; neither party was legally advised, though both were experienced restaurant operators and native Korean speakers who negotiated in both languages. At the time of…
Held: Schmidt AJ dismissed the appeal, finding no error in the Local Court's interpretation. The court held that the disputed clause, properly construed in light of the parties' commercial purpose and the surrounding circumstances, imposed an obligation on Mr Lee to pay the company's prior liabilities within a reasonable time. The court rejected Mr Lee's literal interpretation that the clause merely…
Background: In October 2020, a Tularosa police officer found Carlos Miguel Mendez asleep at the wheel of a truck idling at a stop sign. After detecting the odor of alcohol, observing signs of intoxication, and obtaining breathalyzer readings of .24 and .22 BAC, officers arrested Mendez and charged him with aggravated DWI under NMSA 1978, §…
Held: The New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously reversed. On preservation, the Court held that Defendant's motion to strike Juror 6 — grounded in bias favoring law enforcement — was sufficient to preserve all of Juror 6's voir dire statements for appellate review, even those not individually cited in the motion. Because the core theory of actual bias in favor of law…
Background: On February 12, 2023, Officer Alexis Molina stopped Basil Woody after observing traffic violations; Woody drove more than a mile before pulling into her driveway. After exhibiting signs of intoxication and blowing a blood alcohol level above 0.15, Woody was charged with operating a vehicle under the influence of an intoxicant as a highly intoxicated…
Held: The Hawaii Supreme Court vacated the ICA's decision and remanded, rejecting the Lee test in its entirety. The Court held that the Lee test — which required a movant to show due diligence, that the witness would provide substantial favorable evidence, that the witness is available and willing to testify, and that denial would cause material prejudice — is both…
Background: Mr. Shanmugam Kasiviswanathan, the Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs (and Minister for Law at the material time), and Mr. Tan See Leng, the Minister for Manpower (and Second Minister for Trade and Industry at the material time), sued Bloomberg L.P. and reporter Low De Wei for defamation. The defendants published…
Held: Justice Lim held that the article referred to both claimants and conveyed a defamatory meaning. On the issue of reference, the judge rejected the defendants' argument that only the passages expressly naming the claimants were actionable. Applying established precedent, the court held that an ordinary reasonable reader in Singapore would understand the entire article and extract—not merely the named passages—to…
Background: Roe Buck Holdings owns Emer Farm, a 5.4-hectare agricultural property in Ampfield. The company obtained two prior approvals under Class Q of the General Permitted Development Order to convert an existing agricultural building into five residential dwellings. The first approval (June 2020) expired without implementation. A second approval was obtained in April 2023 and implemented,…
Held: This was an oral permission hearing to determine whether the three grounds of appeal were sufficiently arguable to proceed to substantive review. Deputy High Court Judge Tim Smith granted permission on two grounds and refused it on the third. On Ground 1, the court held it arguable that the Inspector had wrongly interpreted planning policy COM2(b) of the Local Plan.…
Background: Derrick Legree, the defendant below, filed a criminal appeal in the Delaware Supreme Court arising out of Superior Court Criminal ID No. 1301019545. His opening brief was due by May 25, 2026. When no brief was filed by that date, the Chief Deputy Clerk issued a notice of brief delinquency on May 28, 2026.
Held: The Delaware Supreme Court dismissed the appeal pursuant to Supreme Court Rules 3(b)(2) and 29(b). Those rules authorize dismissal where an appellant fails to file a timely opening brief and does not respond to a show-cause order.