Opinion ID: 762018
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Trial and Prisco VI

Text: 45 The parties proceeded to trial. On the basis of the evidence adduced there, the district court, sitting as the trier of fact on the federal claims, dismissed Prisco's CERCLA claim on the ground that she had failed to prove that any of the defendants were potentially responsible parties within the meaning of § 107(a). Prisco VI, 1996 WL 596546, at  9-12. This was, of course, precisely the issue on which the court had held in her favor in Prisco III. 46 In its decision, the district court addressed first the transporter category of potentially responsible parties, the only one arguably applicable to most of the private defendants. Although the court had previously found that private defendants were responsible parties by virtue of the fact that they disposed of [construction and demolition] material at the site ... and since hazardous substances were found at the site, it now recognized that the Prisco III analysis lacked a step: [I]n order to make out a prima facie case, a plaintiff must first have made a showing that a defendant transporter actually brought hazardous substances to the site, whether knowingly or not. Id. at  9. The court found that the evidence introduced by Prisco on this score consisted of the testimony of John Smith as to which companies had deposited what kind of waste, and Charles Rich, the hydrogeologist, who testified that that kind of waste could have caused the release of the contaminants found at the site. Rich also testified specifically that he thought that the environmental conditions at the site had been caused by the presence of materials some of which were similar to the materials that Smith testified had been deposited by some of the defendants. See id. at  10. 47 The district court was unpersuaded that this evidence proved that any particular defendant had transported hazardous substances to the Prisco landfill. Smith's testimony linked only four of the defendants--Stamford, APF, A-1, and A & D--to any particular types of material. And the court found Smith's testimony insufficiently credible to serve as the sole basis for affixing liability to them. See id. 48 Assuming that these parties did transport the rugs, wires, and other items attributed to them, moreover, the court found that Prisco had failed to prove that any of these items actually contained, let alone released, hazardous substances. See id. at  11. It rejected the argument that it was sufficient for Prisco merely to establish the possibility that material of a general type dumped by one of the defendants might contain hazardous substances. See id. And the court noted that most of the materials identified by Rich as potential sources for the released hazardous substances could just as likely have been deposited by a non-party such as the previous operators of the Prisco waste-disposal site or the furniture-stripping operation once operated there. See id. at  12 n. 16. 49 The court even rejected the argument that it would be sufficient to prove that certain defendants transported materials that contained hazardous substances as component parts. It reasoned that even if this could be proved, it would be necessary for Prisco to prove also that such material actually broke down and released the hazardous substances into the soil and water. See id. at  11-12. 50 Finally and separately, the district court held that, although James LaBate and his company, AFC Transfer, had operated the Prisco landfill for a considerable period of time, they were not potentially responsible parties in light of Prisco's inability to prove that any hazardous substances were deposited at the landfill during their tenure. See id. at  12.