The court holds that a town may recover under the New Jersey Sanitary Landfill Facility Closure and Contingency Fund Act costs it incurred cleaning up contamination from a closed landfill on property that it bought before passage of the Act. The court holds that the town is not an "owner" of the lan...
The court holds that a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) defendant is not entitled to access to materials from an earlier grand jury proceeding conducted by the judge presiding over the CERCLA trial. The court first holds that defendant does not need the ...
A district court dismissed a city's RCRA and the California Hazardous Substances Account Act against the United States in a dispute concerning the environmental remediation of Old Hammer Field in Fresno, California. The site, presently occupied by an airport, was used by the United States as an Army...
A court partially grants the U.S. motion to collaterally estop defendants from denying their liability as owners and operators of the Armour Road Superfund site in North Kansas City, Missouri. Except for one of the defendants, prior actions against the defendants were final, or sufficiently final, t...
A court dismisses an individual's claim for $2.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages against a potentially responsible party (PRP) of the Omaha, Nebraska, Superfund site. The individual lived on the site from the date of his birth until his 18th birthday. He claims that he was exposed to le...
The court upholds a lower court decision that the United States has no obligation to reimburse a Florida county for the costs it incurred treating soil and groundwater contamination at the Miami International Air Depot. From 1943 to 1966, the U.S. government maintained and repaired U.S. Air Force ai...
The court upheld a lower court decision dismissing an environmental service company's patent infringement suit against a hazardous waste remediation contractor. The contractor was hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clean up a lead-contaminated parcel of land near Colonie, New York. The com...
The court holds that Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) §107 cost recovery actions are not available to potentially responsible parties (PRPs) and that divisibility of harm is not a defense to §113 contribution claims. The court first holds that CERCLA d...
The court holds that material questions of fact preclude finding a timber company immune from Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) liability for the past and future cleanup costs of a chemical storage site allegedly contaminated, in part, by releases from th...
Editors' Summary: It has become regular practice for federal legislators to insert into annual appropriations bills riders having little to do with the appropriations process. Last year, under the sponsorship of the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, a bill that would have exempted recyclers from CERCLA "arranger" and "transporter" liability was almost enacted as a rider to the omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 1999. This Dialogue examines that rider and the changes it would have wrought to CERCLA.