Source: https://www.alexanderlaw.com/library-toxic-27b
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 12:21:45+00:00

Document:
The lawsuit that followed is reported in three parts. Part I explains how California's statute of limitations for permanent nuisance and statutory exclusion for claims for latent construction defects discovered more than ten years after construction have insulated polluters from liability and, more importantly, how federal law provides for delayed discovery and authorizes the collection of damages otherwise not available. Part II discusses the Sutter Creek homeowners' responses to defenses raised by the mine owner and a developer of this subdivision. Part III reviews the damages available in a case of permanent nuisance.
A settlement was obtained for these Amador County homeowners because of a little known federal law which allows delayed discovery in cases qualifying under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 USC Section 9601[known as CERCLA or Superfund"]. CERCLA also suspends the California ten year statute of limitations on construction defects in toxic pollution cases.
The Central Eureka Mine opened in 1890. The headframe is less than a quarter mile east of Highway 49, sitting on a hill top, just north of the Westover Amador County Airport. The mine and its mill operated continuously from that time until closed by President Roosevelt in 1942. After WWII, the mine reopened and operated until 1958. Quartz ore was crushed until reduced to a fine sand that could pass through a 1/32nds of an inch screen. It then was treated with cyanide to extract the gold and the waste, known as "slime," was sluiced to a. pond, where the water drained into a creek, leaving behind the fine sands in a mine tailings pile located approximately 150 yards east of Highway 49. By 1958 the mine tailings pile was three stories high and had a top surface area of 11 acres. The Central Eureka Mine was aware of the presence of arsenic in the gold ore processed on the site because of U.S. Mint assay reports, but in the 1960 sale of the tailings pile and the surrounding 19 acres the deed mentioned mine tailings on the property but did not disclose that the tailings contained arsenic. Through a series of corporate mergers, the Central Eureka Mining Corporation became the property of AlliedSignal, Inc., a Fortune 500 business.
AlliedSignal claimed that it was lawfully entitled to pollute its own property. For that reason it lawfully "consented" to the nuisance years ago, and accordingly the three year statute for a permanent nuisance action has run under Beck Development v. Southern Pacific Transportation Co. (1996) 44 Cal. App. 4th 1160, 52 Cal. Rptr. 518.
In Beck, the court found that the Southern Pacific gave itself permission to cause a permanent nuisance and therefore was immune from suit because the Southern Pacific conducted its activities on the property with the consent of the owner, namely itself, lawfully and in an open and notorious manner from 1926 to 1945. It sold the property to John Hachman with the storage reservoir in open view and with his full knowledge of the past usage of the property. Hachman acquired no right to sue Southern Pacific for private nuisance and could have passed no such right to subsequent grantees, including Beck. At 555.
Beck went on to apply the three year statute of limitations for a permanent nuisance. In perverse "logic" the court in Beck explained its pro-pollution view: "In an action involving tortious injury to property, the injury is considered to be the property itself rather than the property owner and thus the running of the statute of limitations against a claim bars the owner and all subsequent owners of the property. (Citations omitted) In other words, the statute of limitations does not commence to run anew every time the ownership of the property changes hands. (Ibid.) The injury to the property which Beck complains occurred more than 40 years before this action was commenced and thus this action is time barred unless there is some cause for avoidance of the statute of limitations." 44 Cal. App. 4th 1160, 1216, 52 Cal. Rptr. 2d 518, 556.
The holding in Beck that Southern Pacific could create a nuisance, consent to it, and then sell the nuisance to another party would have the affect of allowing anyone who owned a large parcel of land to create a permanent nuisance, hold onto it for three years, and thereafter be immune. That makes no sense, is counter to public policy and would turn California into a polluter's heaven.
It has long been the law that "a man may not create a public nuisance on his own land." People v. Russ (1901) (In bank) 132 Cal. 102, 105. Understandably if anyone could consent to their own misconduct their would be no nuisance law.
If Beck is a correct statement of California law, then any polluter can willfully destroy its own land at any time, cause the three year statute for a permanent nuisance to begin to run and after holding the property for three years secretly dispose of it and never be held responsible for creating a nuisance, as long as it causes a permanent mess.
The consent defense traditionally arises in the special context of a lessor and lessee, when the lessee has the permission of the lessor to engage in certain acts which the lessor later claims polluted his land.
A possessor of land is subject to liability for a nuisance caused while he is in possession by an abatable artificial condition on the land if the nuisance is otherwise actionable and (a) the possessor knows or should know of the condition and the nuisance or unreasonable risk of nuisance involved, and (b) he knows or should know that it exists without the consent of those affected by it, and (c) he has failed after a reasonable opportunity to take reasonable steps to abate the condition or to protect the affected persons against it.
But, the consent envisioned only extends to an abatable nuisance in an action between a lessor and a lessee, so Mangini concluded that "(I)n these circumstances, for reasons already advanced, we are convinced that the lessee must have a defense that his use of the property was lawfully undertaken pursuant to the consent of the lessor." 230 Cal. App. 3d 1139-40, 21 Cal. Rptr. 836. That is as far as the "consent defense" can be taken under California law.
The California Supreme Court had every opportunity to take up the Beck case, along with Mangini in 1996 and create rules that would hold polluters accountable, but it failed in its obligation to protect Californians and California resources from polluters. The facts in Beck are outrageous.
Newhall Land and Farming Company v. Superior Court (1993) 19 Cal. App. 4th 334, 23 Cal. Rptr. 377 illustrates why the consent defense has a limited application. In Newhall, Mobil Oil operated a natural gas processing plant near Tracy between 1950 and 1970, when it sold the plant to Amerada Hess. During the ownership by the oil companies, hazardous substances were dumped which polluted the soil and entered the ground water. Thereafter the plant was dismantled and rendered inoperative. In 1971 Amerada sold. In 1984, after several intervening owners, Newhall Farming bought the land. At the time there was no visible evidence of prior discharges and Newhall did not suspect the property was contaminated. Newhall discovered the contamination in 1989. Newhall sought a writ of mandate to review rulings on demurrers on his claims for nuisance and negligence claims in which the court discussed and ruled out on a number of defenses.
On the nuisance issue, the court held, as in Mangini (1991), that "Newhall is not precluded from stating a cause of action for nuisance on the ground that Mobil and Amerada could not cause a nuisance to their own property." At 343, 382. "As noted by the Mangini court, under California law, both the parties who maintain the nuisance and the parties who create the nuisance are responsible for the ensuing damages." Ibid. Defendant's reliance upon Pinole Point Properties v. Bethlehem Steel Corp. (N. D. Cal. 1984) 596 F. Supp. 283, was misplaced because, contrary to the statement of law in Pinole, "an owner of property may sue for damages caused by a nuisance created on the owner's property" [at 344, 382] and while in Pinole the purchaser knew of the existence of contamination before acquiring the land, when Mobil and Amerada sold, no disclosure of contamination was made.
Defendants maintained in Newhall that at the time of contamination they could not be held liable to themselves for creating a nuisance, therefore Newhall could not state a nuisance claim against them and there is no continuing nuisance where no nuisance existed at the inception of the wrongful condition. This claim, which in effect proposes that a polluter can create a nuisance with its own permission, was readily rejected.
As for the defendant's consent defense, the court declined the application in this context because "the Mangini court was discussing the conduct of a lessee, not an owner." At 345, 383. "[I]t does not make sense to extend the application of this rule and find an owner can never be liable to a successor in interest for nuisance because the owner consented to his own use of the property. Thus a consent defense should not exist in this factual context." Ibid. That the appellate justices in Newhall understood this distinction, which totally escaped the justices in Beck and the Supreme Court, is tragic error.
In a negligence action custom is relevant on the issue of standard of care, but negligence has no relevance to a nuisance action. It is for that reason that evidence of custom and practice in the mining industry and AlliedSignal defense that dumping mine tailings on its property was a common practice was irrelevant in this case.
AlliedSignal created the tailings pile and sold it in the 1960s. The nuisance it created was discovered by plaintiffs in 1994 and how, why or the manner in which it was created has nothing to do with the fact that arsenic contaminates the dirt are on their property. Plaintiffs only needed to prove that they suffer from a permanent nuisance and were not required to prove that the arsenic contaminated mine tailings were the result of negligence or intentional torts.
The key to understanding this aspect of nuisance law is that it is the effect of the act itself and not the manner in which it was performed which determines whether activity constitutes a nuisance.
Civil Code 3479 provides "anything which is injurious to health or an obstruction to the free use of property, so as to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property is a nuisance." All other code sections on nuisance also are devoid of any reference to the manner in which the nuisance was created, and silent with regard to negligence, fault, intentional tort, or strict liability.
In Shields v. Wondries (1957) 154 Cal. App. 2d 249, 255 the Court expounded on this rule. Although frequently negligence and nuisance coexist, a nuisance and liability for injuries occasioned thereby may exist without negligence. (Curtis v. Kasnter, 220 Cal. 185 [30 P. 2d 26]; Snow v. Marian Realty Co., 212 Cal. 622, 625 [299 P. 720]; Kafka v. Bozio, 191 Cal 746, 748 [218 P. 753, 29 A.L.R. 833].) "A nuisance may not, necessarily grow out of acts of negligence, but may be the result of skillfully directed towards accomplishing the desired end, but which may not have due regard for the rights of others." At 255. (District of Columbia v. Totten, 5 F. 2d 374, 379 [55 App. D.C. 312, 40 A.L.R. 1461].) [Emphasis added.] At 255.
The rule has been applied in circumstances where the vibrations of an engine lawfully operated in a semi-industrial zone were found to be a nuisance and the court held that the "fact that the plant was properly installed and skilfully [sic] operated gives no right to the respondent to thus invade the rights of appellants." Fendley v. City of Anaheim (1930)110 Cal. App. 731, 737. Citing Shields, supra, the Court in Sturges v. Charles L. Harney, Inc. (1958) 165 Cal. App. 2d 306, 318 holds that it is well settled in this state that an owner of land may not do even nonnengligent acts on his property with impunity where they create a nuisance as to his neighbor. Defendant apparently disregards the fact that the evidence also establishes his negligence. In this case, it can easily be said that the torts of nuisance and negligence are coexisting and practically inseparable. (Cutler v. City and County of San Francisco, supra.) At 318.
While negligent acts can create nuisances, proving negligence is not required of a plaintiff in a nuisance case. It is for this reason that evidence of the custom and practice in the mining industry is irrelevant and did not provide any defense to AlliedSignal.

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