APPELLATE PRACTICE

The firm’s appellate cases have shaped Maryland’s environmental and land use law. The firm established the precedent that authorizes a citizen to sue the State of Maryland where the State’s failure to enforce environmental laws causes a “taking” of the citizen’s property. The firm’s appellate cases have also addressed: the requirements for a citizen and an environmental organization to have standing in the federal and state courts; the federal Clean Water Act; the test for special exceptions in Maryland; the need to comply with a county master plan; industrial nuisances; and thermal pollution of trout streams in Maryland.