Opinion ID: 479789
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The RCRA Claim.

Text: 33 The court below also dismissed Dedham Water's claim for injunctive relief under RCRA due to appellant's failure to provide appellee and EPA with 60-days notice prior to filing suit as required by RCRA section 7002. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6972. In November, 1984, however, Congress amended the citizen suit provision of RCRA so as to eliminate the 60-day notice requirement for all claims involving hazardous waste management. Appellant now argues that we should apply the 1984 amendments retroactively and permit the district court to retain jurisdiction over its RCRA claim. 34
35 As amended, the pertinent portion of RCRA's citizen suit provision reads: 36 (1) No action may be commenced under subsection (a)(1)(A) of this section-- 37 (A) prior to 60 days after the plaintiff has given notice of the violation to-- 38 (i) the Administrator; 39 (ii) the State in which the alleged violation occurs; 40 (iii) to [sic] any alleged violator of such permit, standard, regulation, condition, requirement, prohibition, or order, 41 except that such action may be brought immediately after such notification in the case of an action under this section respecting a violation of subchapter III of this chapter; .... 42 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6972(b)(1)(A) (emphasis supplied). Congress added the emphasized language in 1984 to permit the immediate commencement of private actions alleging violations of the hazardous waste management provisions of RCRA's subchapter III. Prior to the amendment, citizen-plaintiffs with a subchapter III claim had to abide by the 60-day notice requirement and refrain from commencing litigation immediately against an alleged violator. 43 It is undisputed that appellant filed suit prior to the enactment of the 1984 RCRA amendments; that appellant's complaint alleges violations of subchapter III; and that appellant did provide actual notice to appellee and EPA before commencing its action against appellee. Appellant did not, however, comply with the 60-day notice requirement of section 7002 as it was then in effect. The sole question we must decide with respect to the RCRA claim, therefore, is whether the 1984 amendment should be applied retroactively. 44
45 In Garcia v. Cecos International, Inc., 761 F.2d at 76, we held that failure to comply with the 60-day notice requirement in section 7002 deprived the district court of subject matter jurisdiction over an action initiated pursuant to the citizen suit provisions of RCRA. Appellee urges us to apply this rule strictly to the facts of this case and affirm the district court's dismissal of Dedham Water's RCRA claim. The rule in this circuit, however, is that a court is to apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision, unless doing so would result in manifest injustice or there is statutory direction or legislative history to the contrary. New England Power Co. v. United States, 693 F.2d 239, 244 (1st Cir.1982) (quoting Bradley v. Richmond School Board, 416 U.S. 696, 711, 94 S.Ct. 2006, 2016, 40 L.Ed.2d 476 (1974)). We see no reason to ignore this rule simply because the case at bar turns on an issue that we have held to be jurisdictional in nature. 13 Accord New England Power, 693 F.2d at 244. 46 In this case, after Dedham Water had filed its complaint, Congress statutorily expanded the jurisdiction of the district courts by permitting them to entertain certain RCRA actions that were not preceded by sixty days notice, as previously required. On more than one occasion, the Supreme Court has also considered actions that were jurisdictionally infirm when filed, yet has found no jurisdictional defect because Congress had enlarged the district court's jurisdiction while the case was pending. See Andrus v. Charlestone Stone Products Co., 436 U.S. 604, 98 S.Ct. 2002, 56 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978); United States v. Alabama, 362 U.S. 602, 604, 80 S.Ct. 924, 926, 4 L.Ed.2d 982 (1960) (per curiam). The plaintiff in Andrus, for instance, sought judicial review of certain adverse administrative decisions taken by the Secretary of the Interior. The original complaint in that case relied solely upon the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) as the basis for federal jurisdiction because, at the time the complaint was filed in 1973, the federal question jurisdiction statute, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1331, still contained a $10,000 amount-in-controversy requirement. Although the Supreme Court later held that the APA did not provide an implied grant of subject matter jurisdiction to the federal courts, Califano v. Sanders, 430 U.S. 99, 107, 97 S.Ct. 980, 985, 51 L.Ed.2d 192 (1977), the Court found no jurisdictional defect in Andrus. Instead, it held that subject matter jurisdiction over the Andrus complaint properly existed by virtue of the 1976 amendment to section 1331 that eliminated the amount-in-controversy requirement. Andrus, 436 U.S. at 607-08 n. 6, 98 S.Ct. at 2005 n. 6. The Court relied on two previous cases, Ralpho v. Bell, 569 F.2d 607, 615-16 n. 51 (D.C.Cir.1977), and Green v. Philbrook, 427 F.Supp. 834, 836 (D.Vt.1977) rev'd on other grounds, 576 F.2d 440 (2d Cir.1978), to support its retroactive application of the 1976 amendment. Andrus, 436 U.S. at 608 n. 6. Likewise in the Alabama case, the Supreme Court ruled that a district court could properly assert jurisdiction over a claim brought against a state pursuant to the Civil Rights Act of 1957, even though the explicit authority for the court's jurisdiction arose after the filing of the complaint as part of the Civil Rights Act of 1960. Alabama, 362 U.S. at 604. 47 One common thread linking Andrus and Alabama is the fact that in both cases Congress subsequently amended the provisions of a statute that it determined to contain a significant jurisdictional gap. Indeed, the reasoning of the decisions in both Ralpho and Green, relied upon in Andrus, explicitly turned on this factor. As the Green court noted, the remedial 1976 amendment was intended to fill what has been termed 'an unfortunate gap in the statutory jurisdiction of the federal courts....'  Green, 427 F.Supp. at 836. The case at bar is no different. In hazardous waste cases arising prior to 1984, a private party could immediately commence legal action against the Administrator of EPA, but not against the alleged violator. Compare 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6972(a)(2), (c), with 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6972(a)(1), (b). In the course of closing jurisdictional and substantive loopholes in RCRA, Congress remedied this odd lacuna by amending section 7002(b) to include the exception to the notice requirement for subchapter III cases that was already part of section 7002(c). We hold, therefore, that at least where Congress has expanded the jurisdiction of the courts in response to a perceived gap in a statutory jurisdictional scheme, it is proper for us to apply the rule of New England Power and Bradley. 48 The rule that a court must apply the law in effect at the time it renders a decision is not, of course, an absolute mandate. The rule does not apply if it would result in manifest injustice or if there is statutory direction or legislative history directing otherwise. Bradley, 416 U.S. at 711, 94 S.Ct. at 2016. Because Congress has provided no guidance as to whether the 1984 amendment should apply retroactively or prospectively, we need only consider whether retroactive application would result in manifest injustice. As we have established in New England Power, 693 F.2d at 245, and Adams Nursing Home of Williamstown, Inc. v. Matthews, 548 F.2d 1077, 1080 (1st Cir.1977), manifest injustice will result when the disappointment of private expectations caused by retroactive application will outweigh the public interest in enforcement of the new rule. Here, however, the balance tips substantially in favor of retroactive application. Appellee can hardly claim that retroactive application of the 1984 amendments would significantly disappoint its expectations in the case at bar. As appellant correctly points out, retroactive application of the amendment would not have breathed life into a previously dormant claim because appellee's first motion to dismiss was denied on the theory of constructive notice. 14 It was only after our 1985 decision in Garcia, 761 F.2d at 76, that the court below dismissed the RCRA claim that had been slowly proceeding to trial since late 1982. Indeed, discovery had been completed and the case was on the district court's trial list when it was thrown out of court. Thus, prior to Garcia, appellee could not have reasonably relied on the fact that we would refuse to apply the 1984 amendment retroactively. Following our decision in Garcia, moreover, appellee suffered no significant detriment even if it justifiably began to rely on the nonretroactivity of the amendment. 15 Finally, appellee's meager reliance pales even further when balanced against the substantial public interest in effectively addressing the growing national problem of hazardous waste, an interest represented by the provisions of RCRA's subchapter III. Accordingly, we conclude that the 1984 amendment to the citizen suit provisions of RCRA must be applied retroactively and that the court below erred in dismissing appellant's original RCRA claim on the basis of section 7002. 49