Carson Harbor Village, Ltd. v. Unocal Corp.

Opinion by Judge McKEOWN; Partial Concurrence and Partial Dissent by Judge BETTY B. FLETCHER

This appeal stems from the environmental cleanup of a contaminated wetlands site used originally for petroleum production and later as a mobile home park. The current property owner, Carson Harbor Village, Ltd. (“Carson Harbor”), brought suit principally under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA”), 42 U.S.C. § 9601 et seq., for reimbursement of costs associated with the cleanup. We are called upon to determine whether, as a matter of law, those cleanup costs were “necessary” and whether certain of the defendants are “potentially responsible parties” (“PRPs”) under CERCLA § 107(a), 42 U.S.C. § 9607 (a).

The touchstone for determining the necessity of response costs is whether there is an actual threat to human health or the environment; that necessity is not obviated when a party also has a business reason for the cleanup. Because the district court erred in focusing on the ulterior business motive for remediation and because there are genuine issues of material fact regarding whether Carson Harbor’s response costs were, in fact, “necessary,”…

join, Concurring in Part and Dissenting in Part.

I agree with the majority that CERC-LA 1 is not a model of legislative clarity. *889 Inconsistencies and redundancies pervade the statute. As a result, our task in interpreting CERCLA is to search for a construction that produces the fewest inconsistencies and at the same time remains true to the statute’s remedial purposes. In holding that passive migration of hazardous waste through soil in this case cannot constitute “disposal” under the Act, the majority misses the mark. If there is a plain meaning in CERCLA’s definition of “disposal,” it encompasses the sort of passive migration at issue here. Finding such passive migration as a form of “disposal” is consistent with CERCLA’s strict liability scheme, that broadly defines “potentially responsible parties” as including those who may have done nothing affirmative to contribute to the contamination of a site and that requires such parties to disprove causation as an affirmative defense. By contrast, excluding this sort of passive migration from the definition of “disposal,” as the majority does, frustrates CERCLA’s two central purposes: to encourage prompt, voluntary private action…