After the real estate boom in the Southeast over the past few years, there are fewer and fewer examples of clean and pristine land available for commercial or industrial use. That means more properties at risk for...more
As a general rule, the law will not allow plaintiffs to sit on legal rights indefinitely. Superfund actions are no exception. The 6th Circuit recently applied this principle, finding a declaratory judgment of liability...more
The federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (“CERCLA”), also known as the Superfund law, has been used successfully to clean up abandoned industrial sites across the country....more
Purchasing contaminated property in Ohio became a little less risky this week. Purchasers can now obtain protection under both federal and state law from costly remediation orders imposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection...more
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today, December 3, in a CERCLA case that could have ramifications for environmental law practitioners around the country. The case, Atlantic Richfield Co. v. Christian (“the...more
A case currently pending before the United States Supreme Court may significantly impact legal rights of potentially responsible parties (PRPs) involved in the cleanup of Superfund Sites. The case was brought in Montana State...more
Because of the increasing frequency of significant, often multimillion-dollar, environmental claims against businesses and individuals under environmental statutes such as the Comprehensive Environmental Response,...more
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that California was entitled to pursue its costs for remediating contaminated property from a buyer in a tax sale who took title to the property long after the contamination...more
A federal court in Alaska assessed responsibility against the City of Fairbanks (City) for remediation costs found necessary to clean up property it previously owned. The court concluded that the City should have mitigated...more
Everyone is familiar with the two little words - “as is” - that pop up in real estate contracts. The “as is” clause is a means of allocating risk between seller and buyer. Generally, a seller who sells property “as is” will...more
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) allows the federal government to collect funds from or to order a “potentially responsible party” (“PRP”) to clean up contaminated sites. 42...more
The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), commonly known as Superfund, is a federal law under which contaminated sites are identified and evaluated by the Environmental Protection...more
Action Item: On March 15, 2015, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin in United States v. NCR Corp., No. 10-C-910 (E.D. Wis. May 15, 2015), held that a potentially responsible party (“PRP”) at...more
Trial court may select the method of accounting for prior settlement in allocating response costs among liable parties, but claims to recover settlement payments are limited to costs consistent with the National Contingency...more
In yet another recent case involving the intersection of CERCLA and state law, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Washington held that CERCLA legislatively displaced federal common law public...more
In Vine Street LLC v. Borg Warner Corp., No. 07-40440, the Fifth Circuit held that, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. United States, 556 U.S. 599 (2009), BorgWarner...more
Tenants who lease currently or formerly contaminated property can now benefit from protections from cleanup liability that were once available only to purchasers of such property. EPA announced its new policy in a December...more
In a recent ruling of interest to any company named as a potentially responsible party (“PRP”) at a Superfund site anywhere in the country, the Alabama Supreme Court has followed the majority of state courts and held that a...more