Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 118.0

524US1

Unit: $U74

[09-06-00 17:54:15] PAGES PGT: OPIN

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

73

Opinion of the Court

more to be known about Williams’s activities.
Indeed, even
as the factual ﬁndings stand, the trial court offered little in
the way of concrete detail for its conclusions about Williams’s
role in Ott II’s environmental affairs, and the parties vigor-
ously dispute the extent of Williams’s involvement. Pru-
dence thus counsels us to remand, on the theory of direct
operation set out here, for reevaluation of Williams’s role,
and of the role of any other CPC agent who might be said to
have had a part in operating the Muskegon facility.14

V

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to
return it to the District Court for further proceedings con-
sistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

14 There are some passages in the District Court’s opinion that might
suggest that, without reference to Williams, some of Ott II’s actions in
operating the facility were in fact dictated by, and thus taken on behalf
of, CPC. See, e. g., 777 F. Supp., at 561 (“CPC ofﬁcials engaged in . . .
missions to Ott II in which Ott II ofﬁcials received instructions on how to
improve and change”); id., at 559 (“CPC executives who were not Ott II
board members also occasionally attended Ott II board meetings”). But
nothing in the District Court’s ﬁndings of fact, as written, even comes
close to overcoming the presumption that Ott II ofﬁcials made their deci-
sions and performed their acts as agents of Ott II.
Indeed, the ﬁnding
that “Ott II corporate ofﬁcers set the day-to-day operating policies for the
company without any need to obtain formal approval from CPC,” ibid.,
indicates just the opposite. Still, the Government is, of course, free on
remand to point to any additional evidence, not cited by the District Court,
that would tend to establish that Ott II’s decisionmakers acted on speciﬁc
orders from CPC.