Opinion ID: 700931
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Appointment of a Receiver

Text: 27 Because the Defendants did not follow the district court's September 4, 1992 order and achieve full RCRA compliance within ninety days, the court, consistent with its prior warning, appointed a receiver on December 10, 1993, to identify the assets of the Defendants and liquidate those necessary to provide funding to achieve RCRA compliance. The Defendants contend in case No. 93-2618 that the district court lacked the authority or abused its authority in choosing this means to enforce RCRA compliance. PPP Br. at v, 11. The Defendants seek to substantiate this contention on several grounds. 28 The district court's determination to appoint a receiver is a matter firmly within its discretion and will be reversed only if such discretion has been abused. Guy v. Citizens Fidelity Bank & Trust Co., 429 F.2d 828, 833-34 (6th Cir.1970). 29 First, the Defendants claim that the appointment of a receiver cannot be viewed as an appropriate form of RCRA relief because Congress failed to expressly confer this power. PPP Br. at 12. RCRA specifically denotes a temporary or permanent injunction as appropriate relief in the face of RCRA violations. 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6928(a)(1). Nothing in RCRA, however, purports either to specify or limit the federal courts' authority with respect to how they are to enforce an injunction that is not obeyed. In fact, it makes no sense to read RCRA's authorization of suits to secure appropriate relief, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 6928(a)(1), as allowing the federal courts to grant injunctions, but not to enforce them by judicially appropriate means. 30 The district court in this case relied on Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 66 and 70, as well as its inherent authority to fashion equitable relief and enforce its prior orders, to authorize its decision to appoint a receiver. J.A. at 190. After reviewing these bases of authority, we are convinced that the district court was well within its discretionary authority to appoint a trustee/receiver to secure PPP's compliance with the court's injunction. See Morgan v. McDonough, 540 F.2d 527, 533 (1st Cir.1976), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 1042 (1977); Feliciano v. Colon, 771 F.Supp. 11 (D.P.R.1991) (appointing special master to assure performance of non-compliant defendants' environmental obligations under injunctive order); United States v. City of Detroit, 476 F.Supp. 512, 520 (E.D.Mich.1979) (appointing Mayor of Detroit to administer water treatment plant of Detroit in order to achieve compliance with court's injunction and Clean Water Act regulations, after defendants defied court's orders). 31 Despite this authority, the Defendants assert that the district court abused its discretion by imposing this remedy because it is not consistent with RCRA's stated objectives to regulate the disposal of waste. The Defendants argue that RCRA's objectives do not extend to a court interposing itself in the operation of hazardous waste facilities or in their remediation. According to the Defendants, the latter objective is left to CERCLA, with its well defined study, remediation, and cost recovery provisions, and the responsibility for such environmental compliance is a role limited to the EPA, not the federal district courts through the auspices of a receiver. PPP Br. at 13. 32 We also find this assertion meritless. Defendants are the RCRA violators, who have still failed to close their hazardous waste facility in the manner required by RCRA and the court's injunction. It is amazing that the Defendants now argue that to compel them to comply with RCRA would serve no objective of RCRA. The injunction commands that the Defendants close up the Richland facility in compliance with RCRA, and such action by the Defendants would undeniably serve RCRA's purpose. It logically follows that the district court's enforcement of the same injunction would also serve RCRA's purpose. 33 Finally, the Defendants argue in a similar manner that the district court lacked authority to appoint of a receiver to produce RCRA compliance because the Defendants no longer own or operate the Richland facility. PPP Br. at 11. They claim that RCRA only applies to current owners and operators of hazardous waste sites and that the cleanup of former hazardous waste sites is properly the subject matter of CERCLA. Id. 34 The Defendants were forced to relinquish title to the Richland facility to the State of Michigan in 1993 for failure to pay their property taxes, but this fact does not alter the Defendants' legal obligation to comply with the injunction to which they were already subject. The Defendants' argument amounts to the assertion that they can dissolve an injunction by an act of noncompliance--failure to pay taxes. This is absurd. 35 The Defendants incurred this RCRA liability while they were the owners and operators of the Richland facility. Although they no longer own the property, it is not impossible for them to comply with the injunction. The district court's Trustee Memorandum gives the Defendants, themselves, the opportunity to draw upon the proceeds from the receiver's liquidation of their assets to fund the compliance work at the site. In short, the Defendants' relinquishment of title to the Richland site has affected neither the need for their RCRA violations to be cured, nor Defendant's ability to comply with the injunction requiring this work to be done. Only if the Defendants remain unwilling to complete the closure with the funds generated by the receiver, will the State step in to perform the necessary work with the same funds. 36 In the end, it is clear that the district court had the authority to appoint a receiver and that it did not abuse its discretion in choosing this means of enforcing its permanent injunction.