Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 116

524US1

Unit: $U74

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 51 (1998)

71

Opinion of the Court

sion over the subsidiary, especially one that assumes that
dual ofﬁcers always act on behalf of the parent, cannot be
used to identify operation of a facility resulting in direct pa-
rental liability. Nonetheless, a return to the ordinary mean-
ing of the word “operate” in the organizational sense will
indicate why we think that the Sixth Circuit stopped short
when it conﬁned its examples of direct parental operation to
exclusive or joint ventures, and declined to ﬁnd at least the
possibility of direct operation by CPC in this case.

In our enquiry into the meaning Congress presumably had
in mind when it used the verb “to operate,” we recognized
that the statute obviously meant something more than mere
mechanical activation of pumps and valves, and must be read
to contemplate “operation” as including the exercise of direc-
tion over the facility’s activities. See supra, at 66–67. The
Court of Appeals recognized this by indicating that a parent
can be held directly liable when the parent operates the facil-
ity in the stead of its subsidiary or alongside the subsidiary
in some sort of a joint venture. See 113 F. 3d, at 579. We
anticipated a further possibility above, however, when we
observed that a dual ofﬁcer or director might depart so far
from the norms of parental inﬂuence exercised through dual
ofﬁceholding as to serve the parent, even when ostensibly
acting on behalf of the subsidiary in operating the facility.
See n. 13, supra. Yet another possibility, suggested by the
facts of this case, is that an agent of the parent with no hat
to wear but the parent’s hat might manage or direct activi-
ties at the facility.

Identifying such an occurrence calls for line-drawing yet
again, since the acts of direct operation that give rise to pa-
rental liability must necessarily be distinguished from the
interference that stems from the normal relationship be-
tween parent and subsidiary. Again norms of corporate be-
havior (undisturbed by any CERCLA provision) are crucial
reference points.
Just as we may look to such norms in
identifying the limits of the presumption that a dual ofﬁce-