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CITIZEN SUIT WATCH: U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Review Ninth Circuit Decision Requiring Clean Water Act Permits for Forest Roads

Client Alert | 1 min read | 06.25.12

On June 25, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court granted two petitions for writs of certiorari to review the decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Northwest Environmental Defense Center v. Brown, 640 F.3d 1063 (2011). The Ninth Circuit had ruled that storm water runoff from forest roads is subject to permitting under Clean Water Act section 402, 33 U.S.C. § 1342. The Ninth Circuit rejected the longstanding position of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") that section 402 permits were not required for such runoff under the Agency's 1976 Silvicultural Rule – a position that EPA reaffirmed in its 1990 stormwater regulations implementing the 1987 amendments to the statute. (For a more detailed discussion of the Ninth Circuit's decision, click here)

Crowell & Moring filed an amicus brief on behalf of the National Alliance of Forest Owners, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and eleven other state and national trade associations all representing forest landowners (together, "Amici";) in support of the two petitions, focusing on the Ninth Circuit’s jurisdictional analysis, in addition to the court’s analysis of the merits under the Clean Water Act. (For a more detailed discussion of the Amici brief, click here.)

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Client Alert | 4 min read | 08.07.25

File First, Facts Later? Eleventh Circuit Says That Discovery Can Inform False Claims Act Allegations in Amended Complaints

On July 25, 2025, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision in United States ex. rel. Sedona Partners LLC v. Able Moving & Storage Inc. et al., holding that a district court cannot ignore new factual allegations included in an amended complaint filed by a False Claims Act qui tam relator based on the fact that those additional facts were learned in discovery, even while a motion to dismiss for failure to comply with the heightened pleading standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b) is pending.  Under Rule 9(b), allegations of fraud typically must include factual support showing the who, what, where, why, and how of the fraud to survive a defendant’s motion to dismiss.  And while that standard has not changed, Sedona gives room for a relator to file first and seek out discovery in order to amend an otherwise deficient complaint and survive a motion to dismiss, at least in the Eleventh Circuit.  Importantly, however, the Eleventh Circuit clarified that a district court retains the discretion to dismiss a relator’s complaint before or after discovery has begun, meaning that district courts are not required to permit discovery at the pleading stage.  Nevertheless, the Sedona decision is an about-face from precedent in the Eleventh Circuit, and many other circuits, where, historically, facts learned during discovery could not be used to circumvent Rule 9(b) by bolstering a relator’s factual allegations while a motion to dismiss was pending.  While the long-term effects of the decision remain to be seen, in the short term the decision may encourage relators to engage in early discovery in hopes of learning facts that they can use to survive otherwise meritorious motions to dismiss....

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