A district ruled on several pre-trial motions of both defendants and plaintiffs alleging property damage caused by a defendant's contamination at its nearby chemical manufacturing facility (a designated Superfund site), negligence, fraud, fraudulent concealment, strict liability, trespass, and civil...
The Court holds that abuse of discretion is the proper standard by which to review a district court's decision to admit or exclude scientific evidence. The Court first holds that the court of appeals applied an overly stringent review of the exclusion of the plaintiff's experts' testimony, thereby f...
In September 1991, 25 people died at the Imperial Food Products plant in Hamlet, North Carolina, when they were trapped in a factory fire. Witnesses to the fire said the employees could not escape because the building doors were locked, apparently to prevent pilferage. The North Carolina assistant labor commissioner subsequently stated that the locked doors constituted "serious violations" of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act). The plant, however, had never been inspected for health or safety violations in its 11 years of operation.
New rules are emerging to change the way the government makes decisions about cleanup of hazardous waste sites under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund). These changes have altered Superfund decisionmaking fundamentally and irrevocably, requiring the government to reach for new levels of accountability, rationality, and consistency. Central to the government's ability to meet this challenge is the way in which it makes and explains decisions about acceptable risks and required levels of cleanup.
In New York v. SCA Services, Inc., the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected the notion that a transporter cannot be an arranger under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). This Dialogue reviews the parties' arguments and the court's opinion. It then analyzes the impact this case will have on transporters.
Editors' Summary: Since 1910, the federal government has played a role in regulating pesticides. At first, the motive was to fight fraud, but as pesticides became more sophisticated and as environmental concerns grew, the government's regulatory efforts became more comprehensive. Now, near the dawn of bioengineered pesticides, with society confronting and reevaluating environmental risks, and with agencies facing fiscal challenges, pesticide regulation continues to evolve. It is a field of concern to the pesticide industry, of course, but in U.S.
The court holds that potentially responsible parties (PRPs) compelled to initiate a hazardous waste site cleanup are precluded from joint and several cost recovery from other PRPs under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) §107(a), and, thus, are limited to...
The court holds that a cleaning product company may pursue its Lanham Act claims against a competitor for allegedly making false and misleading representations on its product label. The court first holds that the district court properly dismissed under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) the company's claim th...
The court holds that a district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over crop owners' state-law claims against various pesticide corporations and, thus, the corporations improperly removed the claims to federal court. The court first holds that the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticid...
The court holds that when a party is liable for pollution response costs under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), it must share them regardless of whether it is the sole cause of the costs. An airplane manufacturer brought a contribution action agains...