Opinion ID: 4458383
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: cranbury brick yard’s contribution

Text: CLAIM IS UNTIMELY The District Court properly granted summary judgment for the government on Cranbury Brick Yard’s cost-recovery claim. Now we must decide whether its remaining claim for 16 contribution is timely. It is not. So we will affirm the District Court on this issue too. A. The clock starts ticking when a party administratively settles its liability 1. CERCLA’s statutes of limitations. CERCLA has two different statutes of limitations: one for cost-recovery claims and another for contribution claims. 42 U.S.C. § 9613(g)(2)– (3). Section 9613(g)(2)(B) provides that a “remedial” costrecovery action like the one that Cranbury Brick Yard brought here must be filed “within 6 years after initiation of” the cleanup. Section 9613(g)(3) provides that “[n]o action for contribution . . . may be commenced more than [three] years after” one of four triggering events: (1) “the date of judgment in any action” for “recovery of . . . costs or damages”; (2) the date of a “de minimis” settlement under § 9622(g); (3) the date of a costrecovery settlement with the federal government under § 9622(h); or (4) the date of “entry of a judicially approved settlement with respect to . . . costs or damages.” Id. § 9613(g)(3) (emphasis added). 2. We must fill a gap in the statute of limitations. The parties agree that none of these contribution-claim triggers occurred because the Consent Order was not “judicially approved.” Looking only at these provisions, one might think that Cranbury Brick Yard’s contribution claim has no time limit. So the statute of limitations has a gap. But it is not unusual for federal statutes to have such gaps. See N. Star Steel Co. v. Thomas, 515 U.S. 29, 33 (1995). We 17 usually fill these gaps by borrowing state statutes of limitations. See id. at 33–34. But doing so with CERCLA would subject the federal government to varying liability state by state. See 42 U.S.C. § 9620(a)(1) (waiving sovereign immunity); see also FMC Corp. v. U.S. Dep’t of Commerce, 29 F.3d 833, 840 (3d Cir. 1994) (en banc) (under CERCLA, “when the government engages in activities that would make a private party liable if the private party engaged in those types of activities, then the government is also liable” (emphasis omitted)). Plus, CERCLA provides ready alternatives. We may borrow a federal limitations period where “federal law clearly provides a closer analogy than available state statutes, and when the federal policies at stake . . . make that rule . . . significantly more appropriate.” DelCostello v. Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 172 (1983). That is true here. To fill the gap, we could hold, as the Sixth Circuit has, that § 9613(g)(3)’s list is illustrative, not exhaustive. See Hobart Corp., 758 F.3d at 774–75 (declining to read the “enumeration of a few triggering events to preclude finding others”). If we did that, then we could expand the list to encompass settlements that have not been judicially approved. See id. But this approach is hard to square with § 9613(g)(3)’s text and structure. That paragraph lists just four events that trigger finality. It separates each with the word “or.” And it contains no broad residual language, like “or other similar settlements.” See Circuit City Stores, Inc. v. Adams, 532 U.S. 105, 114–15 (2001); see also Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 202 (2012) (noting that ejusdem generis applies only where there is “broad catchall 18 language”). So we decline to treat the statutory list as illustrative. Instead, we fill the gap by “ ‘borrow[ing]’ the most suitable statute or other rule of timeliness.” DelCostello, 462 U.S. at 158. Here, the “most suitable” rule comes from § 9613. 3. The clock starts ticking when a party administratively settles its liability. The thrust of § 9613(g)(3) is that the limitations period starts to run when a litigant’s contribution claim accrues—when it “come[s] into existence as an enforceable claim or right.” Accrue, Black’s Law Dictionary 26 (11th ed. 2019). Three textual clues show that a contribution claim accrues when a litigant’s potential CERCLA liability is formally recognized. First, § 9613(f)(1) lets a litigant sue for contribution “during or following any [cost-recovery] action.” So a litigant can bring a contribution claim after its possible liability is officially recognized in a complaint or judgment. Second, § 9613(f)(3)(B) states that “[a] person who has resolved its liability to the United States or a State . . . in an administrative or judicially approved settlement may seek contribution from any person who is not party to [the] settlement.” So a litigant can bring a contribution claim once it has affirmed its potential liability in a settlement with the government. Third, each of § 9613(g)(3)’s triggers—a judgment and three kinds of settlements—formally recognizes a litigant’s actual or potential CERCLA liability. 19 These clues convince us that a contribution claim accrues when a litigant formally recognizes its CERCLA liability. Applying that rule here, Cranbury Brick Yard’s contribution claim accrued in 2006, when Cranbury Brick Yard and NJDEP executed the amended Consent Order. By doing so, they recognized Cranbury Brick Yard’s potential liability, settled it, and acknowledged Cranbury Brick Yard’s “right to seek contribution” from other polluters under § 9613(f)(3)(B). App. 170. 4. We decline to borrow the cost-recovery trigger. Cranbury Brick Yard urges us not to borrow § 9613(g)(3)’s trigger, which is pegged to the date of accrual (here, the date of settlement). Instead, it invites us to borrow the trigger for costrecovery actions: the date the cleanup begins. We decline this invitation. Cost recovery and contribution are two distinct causes of action authorized by two different statutory provisions. 42 U.S.C. §§ 9607(a), 9613(f). Likewise, their differing statutes of limitations are codified separately: one in a provision titled “Actions for recovery of costs,” the other in a provision titled “Contribution.” Id. § 9613(g)(2)–(3). Plus, Congress enacted the two causes of action six years apart. See Cooper Indus., 543 U.S. at 161–63 (canvassing the enactment of these causes of action). Given the differences between the two statutes of limitations, there is no textual basis to think that Congress intended to apply the trigger for cost-recovery actions to some contribution actions. See RSR Corp. v. Commercial Metals Co., 496 F.3d 552, 558 (6th Cir. 2007). In support of its argument, Cranbury Brick Yard cites two out-of-circuit cases that borrowed the cost-recovery trigger. See Appellant’s Br. 42–43 (citing Geraghty & Miller, Inc. v. 20 Conoco, Inc., 234 F.3d 917 (5th Cir. 2000) and Sun Co. v. Browning-Ferris, Inc., 124 F.3d 1187 (10th Cir. 1997)). Those courts viewed contribution claims as a subspecies of costrecovery claims. See Geraghty, 234 F.3d at 924; Sun Co., 124 F.3d at 1191–92. But those cases are stale. More recent Supreme Court precedent has clarified that cost recovery and contribution are “clearly distinct” causes of action. Atl. Research, 551 U.S. at 138 (quoting Cooper Indus., 543 U.S. at 163 n.3). On that basis, the Sixth Circuit held that Geraghty and Sun Co. “are no longer good law on this point.” Hobart Corp., 758 F.3d at 774. We agree. In sum, the trigger for the limitations period was the amended Consent Order, not the cleanup. We will affirm the District Court’s holding that “the statute of limitations began to run [on] February 16, 2006, when all parties to the 2006 Amendment, including NJDEP, signed it.” 2018 WL 4828410, at . B. Cranbury Brick Yard brought its contribution claim too late under either applicable statute of limitations The clock started ticking when Cranbury Brick Yard joined the amended Consent Order. Now we must address the length of the limitations period. There are two possible options. Section 9613(g)(3) provides a three-year limitations period for contribution claims. And under the Federal Tort Claims Act, “every civil action commenced against the United States shall be barred unless the 21 complaint is filed within six years after the right of action first accrues.” 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a). But § 2401(a) is a backstop; a statutory scheme’s specific limitations period sometimes displaces it. See Kannikal v. Att’y Gen. U.S., 776 F.3d 146, 150 (3d Cir. 2015); Mendoza v. Perez, 754 F.3d 1002, 1018 (D.C. Cir. 2014). Either way, Cranbury Brick Yard’s contribution claim is untimely. It accrued when Cranbury Brick Yard joined the amended Consent Order in 2006. But Cranbury Brick Yard did not sue until nine years later. Since Cranbury Brick Yard’s action would be untimely under either possible statute of limitations, we need not decide which statute applies.