Developments in Environmental Enforcement Project & Iqbal Project
In Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. FirstEnergy, Public Justice’s EEP teamed up with the Environmental Integrity Project to pressure FirstEnergy, the owner of Little Blue Run coal ash impoundment (the nation’s largest), to agree to shut down Little Blue Run by 2016, and, in the meantime, to clean up water pollution it caused and pay $800,000 in penalties. For more on this case and to view related documents — including Public Justice’s NOI and the Consent Decree lodged between the Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection and FirstEnergy — follow this link: https://www.publicjustice.net/content/commonwealth-pennsylvania-department-en… In other news, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected an Ohio freight company’s attempt to stop a retaliation and age discrimination suit by a former employee. The decision in Rhodes v. R+L overturns a federal district court’s dismissal of Gene Rhodes’ suit, which claimed that R+L Carriers had retaliated against him for objecting to the company’s treatment of women and others. Rhodes, 60, also alleged that R+L had discriminated against him on the basis of age. The district court had previously found Rhodes’ claims not plausible, in accordance with the 2009 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal. Public Justice’s Iqbal Project was started in 2009 to stop defendants from improperly citing the Ashcroft v. Iqbal decision as a way to get plaintiffs’ claims thrown out of court.
