Opinion ID: 795431
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Continued Viability of New Castle County and Reading After Cooper Industries

Text: 59 We turn, then, to the question of whether we may nonetheless reconsider our precedents in light of intervening authority. In doing so, we are mindful of the Supreme Court's admonition that when dealing with an issue of statutory interpretation, ... the claim to adhere to case law is generally powerful once a decision has settled statutory meaning. Shepard v. United States, 544 U.S. 13, 23, 125 S.Ct. 1254, 161 L.Ed.2d 205 (2005); see also Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164, 172-73, 109 S.Ct. 2363, 105 L.Ed.2d 132 (1989) ([T]he burden borne by the party advocating the abandonment of an established precedent is greater where the Court is asked to overrule a point of statutory construction. Considerations of stare decisis have special force in the area of statutory interpretation, for here, unlike in the context of constitutional interpretation, the legislative power is implicated, and Congress remains free to alter what we have done.). 60 Because the statute itself has not changed, DuPont focuses its attention on Cooper Industries. Its arguments may be distilled to two intersecting theories. First, it argues that Cooper Industries undercut a supposed major premise of our holding in Reading — namely, that a PRP could seek contribution from another PRP without having been sued or settled its liability. Thus, DuPont contends that the analytical foundation of Reading was overruled by the Supreme Court and we may, therefore, disregard our prior decision. Second, it contends that Cooper Industries changed settled expectations in the cost apportionment field to such a dramatic extent that the rules set out in New Castle County and Reading no longer serve the purposes of CERCLA. As such, DuPont argues, the intervening authority of Cooper Industries, when viewed in the light of CERCLA's legislative history, provides a basis for us to find an express or implied cause of action for contribution under § 107 or the common law notwithstanding our precedent. 61
62
63 Cooper Industries did not explicitly or implicitly overrule our precedents; indeed, the Supreme Court expressly declined to consider the very questions at issue here. See Cooper Indus., 543 U.S. at 168-71, 125 S.Ct. 577. Though it is true that our observation in Reading that § 113(f)(1) specifically permits an action for contribution to be brought `in the absence of a civil action under . . . section [107],' 115 F.3d at 1120, cannot support a cause of action for PRPs engaged in voluntary cleanups after Cooper Industries, we reject DuPont's view that this fatally undermines Reading's holding. For one thing (as explained in Part IV.B. 1.b below), our statement in Reading did not necessarily endorse a § 113(f)(1) contribution action in the absence of a preexisting civil action (and is not, therefore, clearly at odds with the Supreme Court's later instructions). But insofar as our statement can be read to recognize implicitly that possibility, it merely  reenforce[d] our conclusion that Congress intended § 113 to be the sole means for seeking contribution. Id. (emphasis added). We also relied on our precedent in New Castle County, the holdings of other Courts of Appeals, rules of statutory construction, and CERCLA's purpose following the SARA amendments, in deciding that § 113 provides the only contribution remedy under CERCLA. We conclude that, even disregarding the possible implicit reference in Reading to a § 113(f)(1) contribution action in the absence of a § 107 suit, our holding in that case was amply supported on other grounds and therefore survives Cooper Industries. 64
65 It is true that Reading's statement — which quotes from § 113(f)(1)'s saving clause — could be read to endorse a contribution action under § 113(f)(1) without a preexisting civil action, and as such would be wrong. See Cooper Indus., 543 U.S. at 167, 125 S.Ct. 577 (explaining that the saving clause does [not] ... expand § 113(f)(1) to authorize contribution actions not brought `during or following' a § 106 or § 107(a) civil action). But the Supreme Court also observed that while the saving clause rebuts any presumption that the express right of contribution provided by the enabling clause [in § 113(f)(1)] is the exclusive cause of action available to a PRP, it does not specify what causes of action for contribution, if any, exist outside § 113(f)(1), and the Court did not itself address the question further. Id. at 166-67, 125 S.Ct. 577. 66 We do know, however, there is one express cause of action available to a PRP for contribution under CERCLA outside the strictures of § 113(f)(1): contribution under § 113(f)(3)(B) for PRPs that settle their liability in an administrative or judicially approved settlement. Our statement in Reading is not, therefore, necessarily incorrect: it is true that § 113(f)(1) does not foreclose contribution actions when the PRP has not been sued, because § 113(f)(3)(B) remains available if the party chooses to settle. As we explain below, SARA's legislative history makes clear that the § 113(f)(3)(B) settlement provision is one of two incentives that are crucial to a carefully considered scheme to encourage PRPs to settle their liability, enter into consent decrees, and perform supervised cleanups. 21 The District Court concluded that the § 113(f)(1) saving clause merely clarifies that a contribution action brought following a settlement under the aegis of Section 113(f)(3) should not be held to be procedurally insufficient because of an absence of a prior primary action pursuant to CERCLA Sections 106 or 107. E.I. DuPont, 297 F.Supp.2d at 754 (emphasis omitted). As the discussion below demonstrates, this interpretation is consistent with the settlement provisions in SARA, and though there is no legislative history regarding the meaning of the saving clause, we are confident that the District Court's interpretation is in accord with CERCLA's purpose (as amended by SARA), as is our decision in Reading. We therefore decline DuPont's invitation to revisit Reading solely because its possible interpretation of the saving clause is incorrect, especially since our statement in Reading is not necessarily inconsistent with Cooper Industries in the first place.
67 DuPont's argument regarding the purpose of CERCLA merits more discussion. To repeat, DuPont contends that, in the wake of Cooper Industries, our decisions in New Castle County and Reading are in direct opposition to CERCLA's broad remedial purpose as expressed in its legislative history. This, it urges, makes necessary an implied cause of action for contribution, available to PRPs that voluntarily clean up contaminated sites, to fill the gaps Cooper Industries recognized in Congress' remedial scheme. Indeed, as one Court has noted, the combined result of Cooper Industries and cases like New Castle County and Reading is quixotic: the present statutory arrangement resulting from the combined authority of [ Cooper Industries and earlier Courts of Appeals cases] compels a responsible party engaged in voluntary remediation to foot the bill for other parties, which will have the effect of encouraging responsible parties to rest on their heels and wait for the instigation of adverse proceedings, rather than implement a cost-effective environmental contamination response strategy. Mercury Mall Assocs., Inc. v. Nick's Market, Inc., 368 F.Supp.2d 513, 519 (E.D.Va.2005) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). 68 As amici American Chemistry Council and Superfund Settlements Project assert, allowing only sued or settling PRPs to seek contribution would discourage and delay the very cleanups that Congress sought to encourage and accelerate by enacting CERCLA. Amici Br. at 9. Indeed, amici assert that the EPA has long encouraged PRPs to clean up contaminated sites voluntarily, and for those who do ( amici estimate around 70% of all cleanups), the EPA has stated that it is `important to ... remove unnecessary obstacles to their ability to recover their costs from the parties that are liable for the contamination.' Id. at 7-8 (quoting National Oil and Hazardous Substance Contingency Plan, 55 Fed.Reg. 8666, 8792-93 (March 8, 1990)). 22 If PRPs engaged in voluntary cleanups may not seek contribution, DuPont and amici argue, companies would resist undertaking new cleanup obligations, and would rarely do so voluntarily, thus frustrating core purposes of CERCLA. Id. at 9. 69
70 We begin, then, with the legislative history of CERCLA. 23 Although the statute is supposed to be comprehensive, the legislative history is not, as many of the pre-SARA cases that allowed an implied right of action under § 107 observed. See, e.g., Walls, 761 F.2d at 318 ([T]he legislative history of CERCLA is vague, reflecting the compromise nature of the legislation eventually enacted.); NCC, 642 F.Supp. at 1263 (noting the absence of significant legislative history of CERCLA); see also Frank P. Grad, A Legislative History of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability (Superfund) Act of 1980, 8 Colum. J. Envtl. L. 1, 2 (1982) (In the instance of the `Superfund' legislation, a hastily assembled bill and a fragmented legislative history add to the usual difficulty of discerning the full meaning of the law.). 71 Though without doubt CERCLA's drafters intended that the statute encourage responsible parties to clean up hazardous waste sites and bear the costs of doing so, see Morton Int'l, 343 F.3d at 676, Congress' position on voluntary cleanups is less clear. Reporting on the proposed Hazardous Waste Containment Act (the House of Representatives' version of CERCLA, see Grad, supra, at 4-5), 24 the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce noted that the bill would establish a Federal cause of action in strict liability to enable the [EPA] administrator to pursue rapid recovery of the costs incurred for the costs of such [cleanup] actions undertaken by him from persons liable therefor and to induce such persons voluntarily to pursue appropriate environmental response actions with respect to inactive hazardous waste sites. H.R. Rep. No. 96-1016(I), at 17 (1980), reprinted in 1980 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6119, 6120. Representative Florio, the floor manager of the legislation in the House, noted that [t]he strong liability provisions that are in our bill ... are very important, because we want to induce those who know where these sites are to remedy the sites themselves. If there is no liability provision, they will not have any incentive whatsoever to go forward on a voluntary basis and clean up those sites. 126 Cong. Rec. H9441 (daily ed. Sept. 23, 1980); see also id. at H9467 (statement of Rep. Florio) (EPA is required not to act if the responsible party or parties will take appropriate action to clean[ ]up and contain these sites.). 72 These statements do not, however, establish that Congress necessarily intended that PRPs engaged in voluntary cleanups be able to seek contribution; they could just as easily reflect congressional recognition that a strong enforcement scheme holding wrongdoers liable would encourage PRPs to head off potentially ruinous litigation or punitive settlements and clean up their own mess. 25 Indeed, Congress provided no express right of contribution for any PRP that incurred response costs, whether voluntarily or not. Language providing an express cause of action for contribution among PRPs was rejected by Congress, see NCC, 642 F.Supp. at 1263, as was language providing for joint and several liability, see, e.g., 126 Cong. Rec. S14,964 (daily ed. Nov. 24, 1980) (statement of Sen. Randolph) (It is intended that issues of liability not resolved by this act, if any, shall be governed by traditional and evolving principles of common law. An example is joint and several liability. Any reference to these terms has been deleted, and the liability of joint tort feasors will be determined under common or previous statutory law.); 126 Cong. Rec. H11,787 (daily ed. Dec. 3, 1980) (statement of Rep. Florio) (same). 73 While it is clear that CERCLA's drafters intended common law principles to govern liability, we have not found evidence in the legislative history that Congress contemplated this would extend a contribution right to PRPs engaged in entirely voluntary cleanups. In fact, the House and Senate floor managers' statements that liability would be governed by common law principles appear inconsistent with this possibility, since contribution among jointly and severally liable tortfeasors ordinarily follows a determination of liability to a common plaintiff who suffered an injury. See, e.g., Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 875, 886A (1979); 2 Michael Dore, Law of Toxic Torts § 16.04 (1999) (In general, contribution is available whenever a party is held liable to a plaintiff for injuries [for] which other parties were at least partially responsible.); see also Northwest Airlines, 451 U.S. at 86-88, 101 S.Ct. 1571 (noting that, in most American jurisdictions, ... a right to contribution is recognized when two or more persons are liable to the same plaintiff for the same injury and one of the joint tortfeasors has paid more than his fair share of the common liability). As then-Representative Gore explained to the House of Representatives in offering an amendment to the Hazardous Waste Containment Act, 74 Joint and several liability ordinarily would mean that whenever a single, indivisible harm is sustained as a result of independent, separate, but concurring tortious acts by two or more actors, each can be held liable for the entire amount of damages incurred.... The plaintiff could collect the total sum of damages awarded from a single defendant and could avoid the agony of multiple suits against the defendants that would otherwise be necessary to achieve full compensation. 75 Under the theory of contribution, the defendant from whom the plaintiff receives payment may then collect from the other defendants for that part of the damages for which each is responsible.... [C]ourts [have] concluded that because the defendants were the ones at fault, it would be unfair to place the burden of demonstrating the apportionability of the damage on the plaintiff. The burden was thus placed on the defendants to work out for themselves who was responsible for what part of the injury under the process of contribution [after the plaintiff recovered his damages]. 76 126 Cong. Rec. H9463 (daily ed. Sept. 23, 1980). 77
78 The legislative history of the SARA amendments, while labyrinthine, is less clouded than the legislative history of CERCLA as initially enacted, particularly with respect to contribution and voluntary cleanups. Cooper Industries puts beyond question that § 113 establishes a contribution remedy only for PRPs that have settled their liability or have been sued, and the legislative history supports this reading. See, e.g., S.Rep. No. 99-11, at 44 (1985) (stating that § 113 clarifies and confirms the right of a person held jointly and severally liable under CERCLA to seek contribution from other potentially liable parties); H.R.Rep. No. 99-253(I), at 79 (1985), reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 2835, 2861 (same); H.R.Rep. No. 99-253(III), at 18 (1986), reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3038, 3041 (stating that § 113 clarifies and emphasizes that persons who settle with EPA (and who are therefore not sued), as well as defendants in CERCLA actions, have a right to seek contribution from other potentially responsible parties). 79 SARA's legislative history also reveals an express bent toward encouraging settlement. See, e.g., H.R.Rep. No. 99-253(III), at 29, reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N., at 3052 (The Judiciary Committee strongly agrees with the Energy and Commerce Committee that encouraging ... negotiated cleanups will accelerate the rate of clean-ups and reduce their expense by making maximum use of private sector resources. The Committee also agrees that this emphasis on negotiated clean-ups should not replace or diminish a strong and aggressive enforcement policy, but rather should complement such a policy.); H.R.Rep. No. 99-253(I), at 100-01, reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N., at 2882-83 (same). As the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee reported, voluntary cleanups, though desirable, should be undertaken pursuant to a settlement with the EPA: 80 Congress, the EPA, responsible parties, and other critics have suggested several means of speeding up and economizing on site cleanups. These include enlarging the Superfund, setting program deadlines, expanding the EPA program offices, empowering citizens to sue, and encouraging voluntary cleanup by industry. Although enlarging the Fund, providing more staff, and setting program deadlines would tend to accelerate the CERCLA effort, the Administrative Conference believes that a properly designed site cleanup negotiation process, through which responsible parties or third parties would agree to act directly to clean up sites, would also hasten cleanup while reducing its expense by tapping the technical and financial resources of the private sector. Involvement of the federal government and affected citizens in this process would ensure adequate protection of public health and the environment. 81 ... 82 The final agreement should take the form of an administrative consent order under section 106 of CERCLA or a judicial consent decree. 83 S.Rep. No. 99-11, at 65, 67; see also H.R.Rep. No. 99-253(V), at 58 (1986), reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3124, 3181 (The Committee recognizes that Fund-financed cleanups, administrative action and litigation — even under a strong and vigorous enforcement program — will not be sufficient to accomplish CERCLA's goals. Voluntary cleanups are essential to a successful program for cleanup of the Nation's hazardous substance pollution problem. [SARA's settlement provisions are] intended to encourage and establish procedures and protections pertaining to negotiated private party cleanup of hazardous substances where such cleanup is in the public interest. (emphasis added)); 132 Cong. Rec. H9609 (statement of Rep. Slattery) (This legislation ... encourages potentially responsible parties to come out of the woodwork and the courts, and settle on an environmentally acceptable cleanup plan.). 84 It is also apparent from the legislative history that Congress intended the contribution allowed by § 113 to be a crucial part of its scheme to encourage settlement and (by extension) private cleanups by PRPs within the bounds of the settlement agreements. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, for example, reported that limiting contribution to parties who were sued or settled 85 should encourage private party settlements and cleanups. Parties who settle for all or part of a cleanup or its costs, or who pay judgments as a result of litigation, can attempt to recover some portion of their expenses and obligations in contribution litigation from parties who were not sued in the enforcement action or who were not parties to the settlement. [Such] parties may be more willing to assume the financial responsibility for some or all of the cleanup [ i.e., through settlement] if they are assured that they can seek contribution from others. 86 H.R.Rep. No. 99-253(I), at 80, reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N., at 2862; S.Rep. No. 99-11, at 44 (same). 87 The settlement procedures now set forth are expected to be a significant inducement for parties to come forth, to settle, to avoid wasteful litigation and thus to begin cleanup. 88 ... 89 The bill would give potentially responsible parties the explicit right to sue other liable or potentially liable parties who also may be responsible for the hazardous waste site. [Also,] [i]f a party has resolved its liability to the U.S. or a state in a judicially[ ] approved, good-faith settlement, the party would not be liable for claims for contribution or indemnity on matters addressed in the settlement. These provisions should encourage quicker, more equitable settlements, decrease litigation and thus facilitate cleanups. 90 H.R.Rep. No. 99-253(I), at 58-59, reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N., at 2840-41 (emphasis added); see also H.R.Rep. No. 99-253(III), at 20, reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N., at 3043 (explaining that [the] amendments to the contribution section [ i.e., § 113] will improve its effectiveness, ensure its fair operation, and encourage settlements by responsible parties). As Senator Stafford, the floor manager of SARA in the Senate, explained, the legislation recognized that settlements are a crucial part of the EPA's enforcement regime, and [t]he theory underlying Superfund's liability scheme was, and is, that the Government should obtain the full costs of cleanup from those it targets for enforcement, and leave remaining costs to be recovered in private contribution actions between settling and nonsettling parties. 132 Cong. Rec. S14,903 (daily ed. Oct. 3, 1986). 91