Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc. v. Gwaltney of Smithfield, Ltd.’s Empirical Analysis
890 F.2d 690 · 1989
Citation profile
30 federal appellate · 16 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 81 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Friends of the Earth Incorporateds v. Laidlaw Environmental Services Inc (2000), Public Interest Research Group of New Jersey, Inc. v. Powell Duffryn Terminals Inc. (1990)
30 federal appellate · 16 district ·
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 33 U.S.C. § 1319 · 33 U.S.C. § 1365
Relies on Allen v. Wright · United States v. W. T. Grant Co. · United States v. Munsingwear, Inc. · Southern Pacific Terminal Company v. Interstate Commerce Commission · North Carolina v. Rice
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 81 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“(1) by proving violations that continue on or after the date the complaint is filed, or (2) by adducing evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact could find a continuing likelihood of recurrence in intermittent or sporadic violations. Intermittent or sporadic violations do not cease to be ongoing until the date when there is no real likelihood of repetition.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[The defendant] also worries that our construction of § 505 would permit citizen-plaintiffs, if their allegations of ongoing noncomplianee become false at some later point in the litigation because the defendant begins to comply with the Act, to continue nonetheless to press their suit to conclusion. According to petitioner, such a result would contravene both the prospective purpose of the citizen suit provision and the “case or controversy” requirement of Article III. Longstanding principles of mootness, however, prevent the maintenance of suit when “there is no reasonable expectation that the wrong will be repeated.” In seeking to have a case dismissed as moot, however, the defendant’s burden “is a heavy one ” [emphasis added]. The defendant must demonstrate that it is “absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur” [emphasis in original]. Mootness doctrines must protect defendants from the maintenance of suits under the Clean Air Act [sic] based solely on violations wholly unconnected to any present or future wrongdoing, while it also protects plaintiffs from defendants who seek to evade sanctions by predictable “protestations of repentance and through reform.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[i]f Congress wished to permit citizen suits only when a discharger fails to abate a problem and the government fails to take enforcement action, ... then it would make little sense to permit penalties for wholly past violations of one parameter simply because there are ongoing violations of another parameter.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.