In part because of the prospect of litigation, executives at Current declined to comment on the firing on Friday.
That means seriousness, courteousness and respect," said Bill Caldarelli, a San Diego litigator and chairman of the litigation section executive committee of the State Bar of California.
If the rule is overturned or is severely weakened, whether through litigation or executive action, stakeholders are likely to litigate to seek to force the EPA to use other authorities under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
A generation ago, absent litigation, the executive branch of city government was content to lock out in the winter cold homeless men for want of shelter beds.
Citing the litigation, KEE executives would not respond to questions.
On the one hand, the stock option backdating litigation involved executives absconding with more compensation than they were telling the shareholders they were receiving.
Some lawyers familiar with tobacco litigation said executives and scientists from Liggett & Myers might help investigators make sense of the mountains of data.
County officials have spent half a million dollars on litigation, said Martin Nichols, executive director of the authority, and completion of the project has been delayed by several years.
"It's the neutron bomb of litigation," said Tom Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive, a private group in Washington that studies federal secrecy.
"We have encouraged the courts to withhold further proceedings in litigation until the executive branch's certification process is complete," Tracy Schmaler, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.
