Opinion ID: 3011274
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Appellants' CERCLA Claim (Count III)

Text: and Spill Act Claim (Count IV) Count III of the amended complaint asserts a claim for damages and injunctive and declaratory relief pursuant to CERCLA, and count IV seeks the same relief pursuant to 25 the Spill Act. As previously mentioned, the district court dismissed the CERCLA claim, reasoning that appellants had not incurred any compensable necessary costs of response pursuant to section 107(a)(4)(B) of CERCLA. See 42 U.S.C. S 9607(a)(4)(B). In particular, the court explained that the only costs that appellants claimed to have incurred were the fees they paid to their environmental consultant, ESI. The district court found that those fees were not recoverable under CERCLA because they had nothing to do with any effort by plaintiffs to detoxify the Property or to prevent or minimize the release of hazardous substances. App. at 14a (emphasis added). The district court explained that the fees were not recoverable because ESI merely reviewed the quarterly reports that Essex submitted to appellants and the DEP; ESI never visited the Property, monitored the contamination or the cleanup of the Property, or gathered data related to the investigation or remediation of the Property. The district court stated that ESI's fees are those of an ordinary expert witness: the fees represent litigation costs, not environmental monitoring costs. App. at 15a. Similarly, the court dismissed appellants' Spill Act claim seeking to recover ESI's fees because the fees are unrelated to any prevention, mitigation, or remediation of contamination on the Property. App. at 14a. The district court also denied appellants' request for a declaration that Essex is liable to appellants for any future costs pursuant to CERCLA or the Spill Act. The court stated that [p]laintiffs have utterly failed to make any showing that they are likely to incur any future costs that will be recoverable under CERCLA or the Spill Act. Indeed, it is undisputed that Essex is contractually obligated to remediate the Property at its own expense. App. at 15a. Inasmuch as there was no evidence--or even an allegation --that the plaintiffs intend to participate in future clean-up activities or incur any costs that might be recoverable under CERCLA, the court concluded that granting declaratory relief would be inappropriate. Finally, the court denied appellants' request for an injunction compelling Essex to commence and complete the cleanup on the basis that there was no present case or 26 controversy. The court reasoned that [t]here is no dispute that Essex is under both a contractual and statutory duty to detoxify the Property; nor is there any dispute that Essex has worked continuously to remediate the Property. The court further explained that [i]n the absence of evidence that Essex has breached the Agreement or violated CERCLA or IRSA, there is no basis for the injunction that plaintiffs seek. App. at 16a. On appeal from the CERCLA and Spill Act dispositions, appellants primarily claim that the district court erred in dismissing their CERCLA claim for monetary relief. 11 While _________________________________________________________________ 11. We will address only briefly the several other issues appellants raise in connection with their CERCLA and Spill Act claims pleaded in counts III and IV of the amended complaint. Specifically, appellants maintain that the district court erred in rejecting their request for injunctive and declaratory relief pursuant to CERCLA, and in dismissing count IV of the amended complaint, their Spill Act claim. First, appellants contend that they are entitled to declaratory relief under CERCLA even if they have not incurred any compensable response costs as of yet, [p]articularly [because] in light of the inexplicable lack of progress by Defendants in detoxifying the Property to date, Plaintiffs may well be forced to incur future response costs to complete [the] detoxification. . . . Br. at 52 (citing Bowen Eng'g v. Estate of Reeve, 799 F. Supp. 467, 476 (D.N.J. 1992), aff 'd, 19 F.3d 642 (3d Cir. 1994) (table)). They also state generally that injunctive relief pursuant to CERCLA is appropriate in the circumstances, but fail to explain the reason for their position on that point. See id. We reject appellants' arguments in their entirety. First, appellants have not presented any evidence with respect to their request for a declaratory judgment as to future response costs under CERCLA demonstrating that such relief is appropriate. Given our discussion in the text that follows, it is clear that appellants have not incurred any response costs to date, and it is undisputed that Essex, rather than appellants, is bound contractually to complete the cleanup of the Property and obtain final DEP approval. Thus, there is nothing in the record suggesting that appellants ever will incur response costs, and there is no potential for injury that is sufficiently immediate and real so as to warrant declaratory relief pursuant to section 113(g)(2) of CERCLA, 42 U.S.C. S 9613(g)(2). See Kelley v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 17 F.3d 836, 845 (6th Cir. 1994) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. USX Corp., 68 F.3d 811, 819 (3d Cir. 1995) (quoting statement in Kelly, 17 F.3d at 844, that  `[i]n providing for the recovery of response 27 appellants have not set forth their CERCLA argument in any detail, we understand they predicate it on a belief that they are entitled to recover the amounts paid to appellants' environmental consultant, ESI, as necessary costs of response pursuant to section 107(a) of CERCLA, because those oversight costs fall within the scope of either _________________________________________________________________ costs, Congress included language [in section 113(g)(2)] to insure that a responsible party's liability [for response costs], once established, would not have to be relitigated. . . .' ) (emphasis added)); The Southland Corp. v. Ashland Oil, Inc., 696 F. Supp. 994, 999 (D.N.J. 1988) (To be granted a declaratory judgment on the issue of liability, . . . plaintiff[ ] must establish four factors to satisfy the requirements of section 107(a), including that, as a result [of defendants' conduct], [plaintiff] has incurred response costs.); compare Bowen Eng'g, 799 F. Supp. at 476 (stating that [O]nce some expenditure [for response costs] has been made, the controversy is sufficiently real to permit the court to issue a declaratory judgment on defendant's liability.) (internal quotation marks omitted). Second, appellants' vague assertion that injunctive relief is appropriate in this case, without any further elaboration on that point, is unconvincing. Finally, we agree with the district court's disposition of the Spill Act claim seeking both monetary and equitable relief. While we have considered appellants' argument on this score, which essentially consists only of a citation to T&E Industries, Inc. v. Safety Light Corp., 587 A.2d 1249 (N.J. 1991), we fail to see how the case is germane here because it did not present claims under the Spill Act. In any event, after reviewing the applicable statutory provisions and case law on point, we are convinced that the district court did not err in dismissing count