Opinion ID: 2737139
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Discharges at Portage, Wisconsin

Text: We now turn to Glatfelter’s argument that the district court improperly granted summary judgment in favor of NCR on the question whether discharges at a facility in Portage, Wisconsin, should subject NCR to liability for response costs at operable unit 1. Portage is 90 miles upstream of the Fox River site. Glatfelter’s theory is that the discharges there flow to unit 1 and thus should make NCR liable in contribution. 52 Nos. 13-2447 et al. This claim was the subject of some procedural confusion in the district court. Glatfelter pleaded its contribution counterclaim regarding the Portage facility against NCR, and in a February 28, 2011, order granting summary judgment in part and denying it in part, the district court held that NCR had no CERCLA liability for operable unit 1. It did not mention the Portage-discharge theory explicitly. Later, in response to a motion for summary judgment by Appvion after it was found not to be a PRP in the enforcement action, Glatfelter argued (among other things) that Appvion’s summary judgment motion did not address the allegation that discharges at Portage could lead to liability; the district court rejected this theory and granted summary judgment against Glatfelter on October 4, 2012. The confusion surrounding the Portage theory is entirely of Glatfelter’s making. While its appellate brief claims that the district court erred by addressing an unpleaded Portagebased claim against Appvion and ignoring its actual claim against NCR, it was Glatfelter itself that raised the Portage claim in response to Appvion’s motion for summary judgment in an attempt to keep Appvion in the case. (Appvion took over the Portage plant from NCR in 1978.) The district court naturally responded to the claim Glatfelter was making in its reply to Appvion’s summary judgment motion, and not to a claim against NCR that Glatfelter was not pressing. The judge did not err by understanding Glatfelter’s ar- gument to be that the Portage claim was about Appvion’s liability. At any rate, the court held in 2011 that NCR was not liable for operable unit 1, and in 2012 that Appvion was not either. Although Glatfelter asserted to the court that the Nos. 13-2447 et al. 53 Portage claim was still live when it responded to the plaintiffs’ summary judgment motion on the state-law counterclaims in 2012, that assertion is difficult to square with the finding in NCR’s favor in 2011, especially if we credit Glatfelter’s current position that this claim was not pleaded against Appvion at all. That Glatfelter ignored the claim for years is reason enough to affirm the district court’s decision that Glatfelter waited too long to preserve its rights. But the district court also addressed this claim on the merits. Even if neither party explicitly moves for summary judgment on the issue, the district court may enter summary judgment on its own motion. See FED. R. CIV. P. 56(f). Glatfelter addressed NCR’s and Appvion’s liability at operable unit 1 both before the February 2011 summary judgment order and in its brief before the October 2012 order. The matter could not have been a surprise. All things considered, it was self-evident that Glatfelter’s Portage theory had little merit, and Glatfelter itself admitted to the court that it was pressing it without much conviction. The district court dealt with it appropriately. We therefore affirm the dismissal of Glatfelter’s Portage claim.