On December 22, 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overturned a district court ruling that had found EPA agents potentially liable for violating the Fourth Amendment rights of a small business when they conducted a warrantless search and tested the company’s rinsewater. The decision was a setback for WLF, which has been representing the company and its owner in an effort to obtain compensation for the government’s bad-faith criminal prosecution of the company on trumped up environmental charges. The appeals court held that the EPA agents were entitled to immunity from any Fourth Amendment liability because the company’s expectation of privacy was insufficient to establish a constitutional violation. In November 2004, following a trial on the company’s claims against the federal government, the district court ruled that although the government acted wrongly in connection with its failed criminal case, the facts were insufficient to establish “malicious prosecution.”