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Mealey's Pollution Liability

  • February 1, 2019

    Sunoco, Pipeline Company Agree To Resolve Clean Water Act Suits Over Spills

    SHREVEPORT, La. — Sunoco Pipeline Co. and Mid-Valley Pipeline Co. on Jan. 30 entered into an agreement with the federal government and Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality (LDEQ) in Louisiana federal court in which the companies agreed to pay $5.4 million to resolve Clean Water Act (CWA) violations stemming from oil spills in 2013, 2014 and 2015 in Texas, Louisiana,and Oklahoma (United States v. Sunoco Pipeline Co., et al., No. 19-cv-107, W.D. La.).

  • January 31, 2019

    Magistrate Says Man’s Suit Over Pesticides Should Be Dismissed, Amended

    BINGHAMTON, N.Y. — A federal judge in New York on Jan. 29 recommended denying a man’s request to proceed in forma pauperis (IFP) and dismissing his suit accusing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, its administrator and others of poisoning him and his dog through the use of pesticides, finding that he failed to sufficiently allege violations of the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Toxic Substances Control Act and Food Quality and Protection Act (David v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, No. 19-cv-0064, N.D. N.Y., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14808).

  • January 30, 2019

    Judge Allows State, Industry Groups To Intervene In Suit Over Waste Storage

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia on Jan. 29 granted motions filed by the state of Oklahoma, two industry groups and a power company to intervene in a suit brought by three environmental groups challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s approval of the state’s rule regarding the storage of coal combustion residuals (CCRs), finding that intervention was warranted under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a) (Waterkeeper Alliance Inc., et al. v. Andrew Wheeler, et al., No. 18-2230, D. D.C., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14131).

  • January 28, 2019

    Insured Urges N.J. Federal Court To Deny Arbitration Of Environmental Claim

    NEWARK, N.J. — An insured argues in a Jan. 16 sur-reply to a motion to compel arbitration in a dispute concerning coverage for a $367 million environmental contamination settlement that arbitration is not warranted because all of the named defendant insurers implicated in the dispute, pending in New Jersey federal court, have not requested arbitration (Cornell-Dubilier Electronics, Inc. v. Allianz Versicherungs Ag, et al., No. 18-15947, D. N.J.).

  • January 28, 2019

    Texas High Court Says Joint Venture Provision Does Not Limit Excess Coverage

    AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas high court on Jan. 25 reversed an appeals court’s ruling that an exception to a policy’s joint venture provision limits coverage after determining that the provision does not limit excess coverage for defense costs incurred by an insured seeking coverage for damages incurred as a result of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico (Anadarko Petroleum Corp., et al. v. Houston Casualty Co., et al., No. 16-1013, Texas Sup.,  2019 Tex. LEXIS 53).

  • January 25, 2019

    Companies Seek Approval Of $14M MTBE Settlement With Orange County Water District

    SANTA ANA, Calif. — A group of companies that make gasoline on Jan. 23 moved in California federal court seeking an order determining that a $14 million settlement of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) claims brought by a municipal water provider is in good faith for current and potential future remediation costs (Orange County Water District v. Unocal Corporation, et al., No. 03-1742, C.D. Calif.).

  • January 23, 2019

    Judge Allows Property Owner To Amend Resource Conservation And Recovery Act Claim

    SAN DIEGO — A federal judge in California on Jan. 22 dismissed without prejudice a property owner’s claim that companies that worked on a construction project violated the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) when dumping materials from the project on his property, holding that while he sufficiently alleged that the defendants contributed to the disposal of hazardous waste, he did not allege that the waste presented an imminent threat to human health and the environment (Todd Ingalls v. AMG Demolition & Environmental Services, et al., No. 17-cv-2013, S.D. Calif., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10198).

  • January 22, 2019

    Policies Will Be Construed Under New York And Connecticut Law, Judge Says

    LAFAYETTE, Ind. — New York and Connecticut law will be applied to an insured’s policies implicated in an environmental liability coverage dispute because the insured was headquartered in both states and the majority of the evidence indicates that the policies at issue were contracted in New York, an Indiana federal magistrate judge said Jan. 15 in granting an insurer’s motion for partial summary judgment (Landis+Gyr, et al. v. Zurich American Insurance Co., No. 16-82, N.D. Ind., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 6964).

  • January 18, 2019

    Divided 6th Circuit Denies Request For En Banc Rehearing Over Discharges

    CINCINNATI — A divided Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 17 refused a petition filed by two environmental groups seeking an en banc rehearing of a ruling that calls for the dismissal of their Clean Water Act lawsuit against Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) on the ground that it did not violate the statute when coal ash discharges from its wastewater treatment system reached a navigable waterway through groundwater (Tennessee Clean Water Network, et al. v. Tennessee Valley Authority, No. 17-6155, 6th Cir., 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 1601).

  • January 18, 2019

    5th Circuit Panel Upholds Denial Of Review Of Warehouse’s Settlement Award

    NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana did not err when refusing to conduct a discretionary review of a company’s appeal of a $3,907.05 settlement award it received through the Deepwater Horizon Economic and Property Damages Class Action Settlement Agreement, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled Jan. 16, holding that a Court Supervised Settlement Program (CSSP) appeals panel did not misapply the terms of the settlement (Claimant ID 100303892 v. BP Exploration & Production Inc., et al., No. 18-30792, 5th Cir., 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 1410).

  • January 17, 2019

    Attorneys For GE, Residents Debate Groundwater Remediation At 7th Circuit

    CHICAGO — The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Jan. 15 heard oral arguments in a groundwater contamination lawsuit in which residents and the owner of a golf course contend that federal law requires General Electric Co. to abate 500 million gallons of water tainted with organic solvents (Martha Kai Conway, et al. v. General Electric Company, No. 18-1522, 7th Cir.).

  • January 15, 2019

    Magistrate Judge Hits Reset Button On Discovery Dispute In Cleanup Suit

    SAN DIEGO — A federal judge in California on Jan. 11 enacted an “Operation Reset” in a dispute involving a dairy’s request for records involving communications between the owner of a manmade lake and a number of public agency defendants (PADs) over contamination at the site, ruling that the counsel for the parties should meet and confer about documents that have not been turned over pursuant to the dairy’s motion to compel and any privilege that may be associated with the documents (Citizens Development Corp. v. County of San Diego, et al., No. 12cv334, S.D. Calif., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5713).

  • January 10, 2019

    Groups: High Court Review Needed To Settle Circuit Court Split In Pipeline Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Environmental groups on Jan. 9 filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court, contending that a lower court “discarded Pennsylvania’s statutory definition of finality, and instead inserted its own federal standard of finality” when it ruled that federal law preempted the state review process for the construction of a pipeline that would carry hydraulically fractured gas through several counties in the state (Delaware Riverkeeper Network, et al. v. Secretary of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, et al., No. N/A, U.S. Sup.).

  • January 10, 2019

    Nonprofit’s $1.5M Oil Spill Settlement Award Upheld By 5th Circuit

    NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana did not err when refusing BP Exploration & Production Inc.’s request to conduct a discretionary review of a Court Supervised Settlement Program (CSSP) claims administrator’s decision to award nearly $1.5 million to a nonprofit that operates group homes for teenagers for damages following the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico following the April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled Jan. 9, holding that the claimant provided sufficient information to support the award (BP Exploration & Production Inc. v. Claimant ID 100333854, No. 18-30653, 5th Cir.).

  • January 10, 2019

    Divided 9th Circuit Panel Says It Will Review Climate Change Suit Rulings

    SAN FRANCISCO — A 2-1 Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Dec. 26 said it would review rulings by a federal judge in Idaho that have kept alive a lawsuit brought by a number of youths that accuse the federal government of implementing policies that promote global warming and climate change, holding that review is warranted under Judicial and Judiciary Procedure, Title 28, Section 1292(b) (Kelsey Rose Juliana, et al. v. United States, No. 18-80176, 9th Cir.).

  • January 10, 2019

    Magistrate Judge Finds Experts’ Testimony Admissible In Suit Over Contamination

    BUFFALO, N.Y. — A federal magistrate judge in New York on Dec. 27 denied cross-motions to exclude expert testimony filed by parties in a suit over the recovery of cleanup costs for groundwater contamination at a site that formerly housed a gasoline station operated by Atlantic Richfield Co., finding that the parties’ challenges to each other’s experts went to the weight of their testimony (51 Webster St. Inc. v. Atlantic Richfield Co., No. 16-CV-468-MJR, W.D. N.Y., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 217909).

  • January 9, 2019

    Verdict Ordering Union Pacific To Pay $5.6M For Cleanup Upheld

    WILMINGTON, Del. — The Delaware Supreme Court on Jan. 7 found that a trial court judge’s instructions to a jury that had it determine what the reasonable response costs an environmental services company incurred in remediating a site in Wichita, Kan., and a reasonable amount Union Pacific Corp. should pay to reimburse the company were not misleading and affirmed its verdict requiring Union Pacific to pay $5.6 million (Union Pacific Corp. v. Clean Harbors Inc., No. 35, 2018, Del. Sup., 2019 Del. LEXIS 6).

  • January 8, 2019

    MTBE MDL Judge Refuses To Suggest Remand Of State’s Contamination Suit

    NEW YORK — The federal judge in New York presiding over suits stemming from groundwater contamination caused by methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) on Jan. 7 refused to suggest to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL) that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s action over groundwater contamination allegedly caused by the gasoline additive should be remanded, finding that no good cause exists (In re: Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (“MTBE”) Products Liability Litigation, MDL 1358, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Exxon Mobil Corp., et al., No. 14 Civ. 6228, S.D. N.Y., 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2649)

  • January 7, 2019

    High Court Denies Petition Challenging State Attorney General’s Investigation

    WASHINGTON, D.C. —The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 7 denied Exxon Mobile Corp’s petition for a writ of certiorari that sought review of a Massachusetts Judicial Supreme Court ruling allowing the state’s attorney general to investigate the company’s knowledge about the relationship between burning fossil fuels and climate change (Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Maura Healey, No. 18-311, U.S. Sup.).

  • January 4, 2019

    U.S. Solicitor General: Clean Water Act Case Warrants Review On Limited Question

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. solicitor general on Jan. 3 filed a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that review is needed in a consolidated groundwater contamination lawsuit to resolve a split among federal appellate courts concerning application of the Clean Water Act (CWA) regarding the discharge of pollutants into navigable water as well as into soil and groundwater (Kinder Morgan Energy, et al. v. Upstate Forever, et al., No. 18-268; County of Maui, Hawaii v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, et al., No. 18-260, U.S. Sup.).