Opinion ID: 199558
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Consent Decree I

Text: Ashland's appeal focuses on Consent Decree I, the primary settlement between the United States and UTC, which began consent decree negotiations with the United States as an alternative to pursuing an appeal of the judgment in Davis I. In discussions with UTC, the EPA assigned possibly settling PRPs (generators and transporters of waste) to two groups, carve-out and non-carve-out. The carve-out entities were deemed primarily responsible for the waste at the Davis site, and so were compelled to negotiate individual settlements with the United States. Non-carve-out third parties were encouraged to negotiate a possible global settlement among themselves, with the assistance of liaison counsel. On July 14, 1995, following the Phase I settlement with four parties, the United States offered to settle with all remaining parties for about $16 million plus the performance of site soil cleanup using low-temperature thermal desorption technology. UTC provisionally agreed to the United States's settlement offer and pursued its contribution claims. Ultimately, UTC, carve-outs Olin Hunt and - 16 - American Cyanamid, and about fifty other parties joined this settlement. The parties paid a total of $13.5 million to the United States, plus $440,000 in oversight costs. Of that amount, Olin Hunt and American Cyanamid paid $2.75 million each (with some portion going to resolution of state claims), non-carve-out parties paid a total of $7.2 million, and UTC paid the remaining balance, about $2.8 million.15 Furthermore, UTC took responsibility for the entire expense of site soil remediation, an estimated cost of about $14 million. Under the settlement, UTC and the United States each receive half of future contribution recoveries, with UTC's recovery capped at $5.364 million after deducting 15 percent of contribution recoveries for attorneys' fees incurred in contribution litigation after March 1996. Finally, the settling parties received complete contribution protection from claims by other PRPs. Separate recoveries by the United States would not be subject to contribution sharing. While the predicted cost of cleaning up the Davis site has varied over the years, the most recent estimate, from 1997, took into account new remediation technology and set the total at $55 million. This amount guided the United States in determining the settlement amounts. In addition, the allocations to Clairol and the other parties 15The allocation among the non-carve-outs was initially confidential, though the payment amounts have now been disclosed. - 17 - in the earlier Phase I, $5.625 million settlement provided a benchmark for the amounts requested from potential settlors in the later consent decrees. Davis II, 11 F. Supp. 2d at 191.