Neal McAliley

On behalf of the Florida State Board of Administration, which consists of Florida's Governor, Attorney General and Chief Financial Officer, we successfully defended a 2011 Florida Statute which reformed the retirement system for state employees. The 2011 statute made a series of changes to the Florida Retirement System, which included adding a requirement that state employees contribute three percent of their compensation toward their pensions. Several employees challenged the statute, and in 2012 a Florida Circuit Court ruled that it violated the Florida Constitution. The State Board of Administration hired White & Case to represent it in the Florida Supreme Court, and January 2013 the Supreme Court reversed the lower court ruling and held that the 2011 reforms complied with the Florida Constitution. The victory saves the state more than $1 billion a year in pension costs.On behalf of the Florida State Board of Administration, which consists of Florida's Governor, Attorney General and Chief Financial Officer, we successfully defended a 2011 Florida Statute which reformed the retirement system for state employees. The 2011 statute made a series of changes to the Florida Retirement System, which included adding a requirement that state employees contribute three percent of their compensation toward their pensions. Several employees challenged the statute, and in 2012 a Florida Circuit Court ruled that it violated the Florida Constitution. The State Board of Administration hired White & Case to represent it in the Florida Supreme Court, and January 2013 the Supreme Court reversed the lower court ruling and held that the 2011 reforms complied with the Florida Constitution. The victory saves the state more than $1 billion a year in pension costs.

On behalf of New Hope Power Company, a renewable energy company located in Florida, we successfully challenged a new rule of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which changed longstanding rules regarding federal wetland jurisdiction over farmlands. For years, the Army Corps and EPA exempted from regulatory jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act certain former wetlands which had been drained and converted to croplands decades ago. In 2009, the Army Corps issued an internal memorandum which changed the rules for this exemption, without going through public notice and comment procedures, and told New Hope that it would be subject to government action if it sought to expand its energy facility on such croplands without a federal permit. A team of lawyers, including lawyers at White & Case LLP and Sive Paget & Riesel, filed a lawsuit in 2009 against the Army Corps claiming that the new rule was illegal under the federal Administrative Procedure Act. In September 2011, the U.S. District Court in Miami declared the new rule to be invalid and enjoined the Army Corps from implementing it until it complied with the Administrative Procedure Act. This ruling affects literally millions of acres of farmlands across the United States.On behalf of New Hope Power Company, a renewable energy company located in Florida, we successfully challenged a new rule of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers which changed longstanding rules regarding federal wetland jurisdiction over farmlands. For years, the Army Corps and EPA exempted from regulatory jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act certain former wetlands which had been drained and converted to croplands decades ago. In 2009, the Army Corps issued an internal memorandum which changed the rules for this exemption, without going through public notice and comment procedures, and told New Hope that it would be subject to government action if it sought to expand its energy facility on such croplands without a federal permit. A team of lawyers, including lawyers at White & Case LLP and Sive Paget & Riesel, filed a lawsuit in 2009 against the Army Corps claiming that the new rule was illegal under the federal Administrative Procedure Act. In September 2011, the U.S. District Court in Miami declared the new rule to be invalid and enjoined the Army Corps from implementing it until it complied with the Administrative Procedure Act. This ruling affects literally millions of acres of farmlands across the United States.

On behalf of seafood importer Carlos Seafood, Inc. and its owners, we successfully defended against a federal criminal indictment which claimed that the company had illegally imported and mislabeled fish imported into the United States. For several years, Carlos Seafood imported frozen fish fillets from Nicaragua labeled as "golden sea bass." In 2007, the U.S. Attorneys Office brought criminal charges against the company and three individuals claiming that Florida law prohibited sale of that type of fish (known in Florida as "snook") and accused the defendants of deliberately mislabeling the fish. In 2009, we persuaded the U.S. District Court in Miami that the Florida law did not prohibit the sale of "snook" caught outside of Florida waters. When we then presented evidence that "sea bass" is a common English translation of the Spanish name for the fish in Nicaragua, the government dropped all charges against the individual defendants and agreed to resolve the case against the company for a $1000 fine. The result was a complete vindication for our clients, who were threatened by the government with years of jail time and millions of dollars in fines. White & Case represented the defendants in a team which also included criminal defense lawyers David Mandel and Frank Schwartz.

We successfully defended a property owner in Martin County, Florida in a wetland enforcement action brought by the U.S. Department of Justice. Our client Ben Sharfi did work in wetlands on a small parcel of land that is part of his farm. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers told him that he needed a Clean Water Act Section 404 permit, but when he refused, the U.S. Department of Justice brought a civil enforcement action against him, US v. Sharfi, Case No. 21-cv-14205 (S.D. Fla.). Our defense was that the wetland on his property was not part of the "waters of the United States" regulated under the Clean Water Act, because it is located miles from the nearest natural stream, the manmade ditches near his property are only intermittently wet, there is no continuous surface water connection between the wetland and the ditches, and the wetland is easily distinguishable from any regulated body of water. U.S. Magistrate Judge Shaniek Maynard issued a Report and Recommendation that agreed with our position, and U.S. District Judge Kenneth Marra adopted it and entered summary judgment for the defendants. This is one of the best results in years for a property owner in a federal wetland enforcement action, and significantly advances the law in this area.

We successfully represented Florida Power & Light Co. in defense of a Clean Water Act citizen suit that challenged the continuing operation of the cooling canals associated with the Turkey Point Power Plant. This facility has been in operation for half a century and provides clean energy from its two nuclear electrical generating units and one natural gas unit. The plaintiffs alleged that the cooling canals were discharging into nearby Biscayne Bay and also were causing violation of groundwater criteria. We believed that the allegations were simply wrong on a technical level, and set out to disprove them at trial. After extensive discovery and a two-week trial that involved the testimony of ten technical experts, Judge Cathy Sellers of the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings ruled that the claims lacked technical and legal merit. It was a great win for our client and was hard-earned due to the technical nature of the issues.