AmLaw Litigation Daily Features B&D Trial Win for City of Los Angeles in Major Constitutional Case

AmLaw Litigation Daily featured B&D’s trial win for the City of Los Angeles in a long-running case challenging Kern County, California’s effort to ban land application of biosolids fertilizer to farmland. The article, titled "Dirty Fight, Clean Win—How Enviro Experts at Beveridge and Diamond Beat Arnold and Porter in Fight Over LA’s Biosolids," highlights a two-week bench trial prosecuted by Principals Jimmy Slaughter and Jamie Auslander (Washington, DC).

Following the trial, Judge Lloyd Hicks of the Tulare County, California Superior Court struck down a voter initiative passed in Kern County that banned the land application of biosolids (treated municipal wastewater sludge) in the county. City of Los Angeles v. Kern County, 2017 WL 1292822 (Tulare Co. Super. Ct. Mar. 14, 2107). The case is believed to be the first trial focused on the benefits and safety of recycling biosolids to farmland, a practice used by many of America’s largest cities for decades.

The City of Los Angeles in its media statement following the trial said that it “welcomed the decision and looks forward to continuing to recycle biosolids at its farm to grow feed crops used by Kern County dairies and to benefit the millions of City residents who depend on economical and environmentally sound wastewater management.” The case and subsequent settlement foreclosing all appeals were covered in the Los Angeles Times, The Bakersfield Californian, Law360, BNA, and other media and trade press, available here.

Click here for the full AmLaw Litigation Daily article.