Opinion ID: 1929143
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: shall become legally obligated to pay

Text: Judging from the evidence adduced at trial, the interaction between B & L and the State in regard to the Diecraft clean-up was somewhat problematic. B & L acted throughout in a cooperative manner with State regulators in assessing the pollution's extent and devising plans to treat it. It is less certain that B & L acted purely voluntarily in doing so. First, all parties concede that the relevant environmental statutes, as outlined above, impose strict liability upon the owners of polluted property; the statutes further grant the State the authority to enforce the laws either by administrative order, by injunction, or by the State's own, direct remediation at the owner's expense. See supra, n. 5. The tacit threat of formal State intervention was thus always present in B & L's dealings with the State regulators. Second, the immediate contacts between B & L and State personnel carried weight in the clean-up project. State regulators reviewed and approved B & L's studies and subsequent remediation program; implicit in their approval was the power to disapprove, and demand that more be done. To be sure, the State agents did not adopt an overtly adversarial and coercive posture towards B & L. The State did not sue the company. It issued no order. See Ryan v. Royal Ins. Co. of America, 916 F.2d 731, 736-743 (1st Cir.1990) (under New York law, State's mild statements did not create showing of probable and imminent governmental action required as a condition precedent to insurance coverage). Yet polite but puissant compulsion may inhere to State regulatory activities, especially when, as here, the regulators actively monitor the clean-up. A.Y. McDonald Industries, supra, 475 N.W.2d at 620 (quoting Aerojet-General Corp. v. Superior Court, 211 Cal. App.3d 216, 228, 257 Cal. Rptr. 621, 628 (1989)). B & L ultimately faced the task of complying with the environmental laws, and paying the costs of compliance. As such, for the purposes of this analysis, we accept the trial court's finding that B & L's response costs, undertaken in the regulatory context, represented a sum the corporation was legally obligated to pay.