Results

In this case, many environmental advocacy groups petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate critical habitat for a species, the Florida panther, which was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1967. The petition was denied. Claiming the agency's action was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedure Act, the groups filed a citizens suit under the ESA in district court. At district, the group's complaints were dismissed and the groups subsequently lost on appeal.

Friends of Animals (FOA), an animal advocacy group, brought an action against the Secretary of the Interior, et al, (Defendants) under the Endangered Species Act seeking declaratory and injunctive relief by claiming that the Secretary failed to make statutory 90-day and 12-month findings related to the petition to have 13 species of birds listed as threatened or endangered. The Court found that FOA's claim that Defendants failed to make a 90-day finding on its endangered-species petition was moot, and its claim that Defendants failed to meet the 12-month deadline provided by the ESA had to be dismissed due to FOA's failure to provide Defendants with proper notice. The Court did find, however, that FOA's lawsuit was the catalyst prompting Defendants to ultimately issue a 90-day finding as required. Thus, the Court here considers FOA's motion for attorneys' fees and costs. The Court held that FOA could recover fees for work on the notice letter, complaint, and petition for fees to the extent it related to the claim that prompted the 90-day finding. However, the court reduced the amount of time spent on the complaint by fifty percent.

This case examines the requirements surrounding the issuance of an Incidental Take Statement (ITS), a statement that authorizes harm to an endangered species, but that must include a trigger for reviewing the decision (known as “re-consultation”) at the point when there is a risk of jeopardizing the species. The trigger must be a numerical trigger describing the “take” (e.g., the capturing or killing of members of an endangered species) in terms of specific population data unless it is impractical to do so.   Specifically, this case explores whether the Army Corps of Engineers and FTS were able to use an ecological surrogate in place of a numerical trigger in an ITS that was promulgated in the process of conservation work in the Everglades.   This conservation work involved manipulating water levels in the Everglades and impacted the viability of three species protected under the Endangered Species Act (the Cape Sable seaside sparrow, the Everglade snail kite, and the wood stork), as well as the well-being of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians.

After parties in a lawsuit over listing species as endangered or threatened agreed upon a settlement, the Safari Club motioned to intervene because the settlement might affect three species that the club's members hunt. The district court denied the motion to intervene as of right because the club lacked Article III standing and denied a permissive intervention because it would cause undue delay and prejudice to the parties; the court then approved the settlement and the club appealed. The appeals court affirmed the lower court's decision that the club lacked Article III standing for intervening as of right. The appeals court, however, in view of uncertainty whether Article III standing was required for permissive intervention, declined to exercise pendant appellate jurisdiction over the permissive intervention appeal.