Case Explained: INLAND EMPIRE WATERKEEPER, ET AL. V. CORONA CLAY COMPANY

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Filed: 2026-08-05 Docket: 8:18-cv-00333- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of the defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction but reversed the denial of its motion for a new trial and remanded the case for further proceedings. The court held that whether a waterway qualifies as a “water of the United States” under the Clean Water Act is a merits question regarding statutory coverage, not a prerequisite for federal subject-matter jurisdiction over a citizen suit; therefore, the district court properly retained jurisdiction despite the defendant’s later challenge to the creek’s status. However, the panel concluded that the Supreme Court’s intervening decision in *Sackett v. EPA*, which narrowed the definition of “waters of the United States” to require relatively permanent bodies of water with a continuous surface connection to navigable waters, constituted a substantial change in law that rendered the defendant’s previously foreclosed argument viable. Because the defendant raised this issue at the earliest opportunity after the legal shift and the district court retained jurisdiction, the Ninth Circuit determined that a new trial was warranted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59 to allow the parties to litigate whether Temescal Creek satisfies the new *Sackett* standard, as the existing record was insufficient to make this determination in the first instance. Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.