Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/524bv.pdf
Page Number: 108

524US1

Unit: $U74

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

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

63

Opinion of the Court

that it may be used as a mere agency or instrumentality of
the owning company”); P. Blumberg, Law of Corporate
Groups: Tort, Contract, and Other Common Law Problems in
the Substantive Law of Parent and Subsidiary Corporations
§§ 6.01–6.06 (1987 and 1996 Supp.) (discussing the law of veil
piercing in the parent-subsidiary context). Nothing in
CERCLA purports to rewrite this well-settled rule, either.
CERCLA is thus like many another congressional enactment
in giving no indication that “the entire corpus of state corpo-
ration law is to be replaced simply because a plaintiff ’s cause
of action is based upon a federal statute,” Burks v. Lasker,
441 U. S. 471, 478 (1979), and the failure of the statute to
speak to a matter as fundamental as the liability implications
of corporate ownership demands application of the rule that
“[i]n order to abrogate a common-law principle, the statute
must speak directly to the question addressed by the com-
mon law,” United States v. Texas, 507 U. S. 529, 534 (1993)
(internal quotation marks omitted). The Court of Appeals
was accordingly correct in holding that when (but only when)
the corporate veil may be pierced,9 may a parent corporation

9 There is signiﬁcant disagreement among courts and commentators over
whether, in enforcing CERCLA’s indirect liability, courts should borrow
state law, or instead apply a federal common law of veil piercing. Com-
pare, e. g., 113 F. 3d, at 584–585 (Merritt, J., concurring in part and dissent-
ing in part) (arguing that federal common law should apply), Lansford-
Coaldale Joint Water Auth. v. Tonolli Corp., 4 F. 3d, at 1225 (“[G]iven the
federal interest in uniformity in the application of CERCLA, it is federal
common law, and not state law, which governs when corporate veil-
piercing is justiﬁed under CERCLA”), and Aronovsky & Fuller, Liabil-
ity of Parent Corporations for Hazardous Substance Releases under
CERCLA, 24 U. S. F. L. Rev. 421, 455 (1990) (“CERCLA enforcement
should not be hampered by subordination of its goals to varying state law
rules of alter ego theory”), with, e. g., 113 F. 3d, at 580 (“Whether the
circumstances in this case warrant a piercing of the corporate veil will be
determined by state law”), and Dennis, Liability of Ofﬁcers, Directors and
Stockholders under CERCLA: The Case for Adopting State Law, 36 Vill.
L. Rev. 1367 (1991) (arguing that state law should apply). Cf. In re
Acushnet River & New Bedford Harbor Proceedings, 675 F. Supp. 22, 33