Our runners up for Litigator of the Week include a team from Beveridge & Diamond led by Jimmy Slaughter, David Friedland, Tony Michaels, Josh Van Eaton and Roy Prather for a significant preemption win on behalf of Wheelabrator Technologies in Baltimore.
Their client, which incinerates much of the city’s and the region’s non-hazardous solid waste—and generates large amounts of electricity and steam—would have been put out of business after the Baltimore City Council passed the strictest clean air standards in the country. Slaughter and his team convinced U.S. District Judge George Russell III in Baltimore to strike down the ordinance based on conflict preemption under Maryland’s air pollution control laws.
