Opinion ID: 2982747
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Appellee’s Counter-Arguments Fail

Text: Appellee insists that the Settlement Agreement in the present case is a § 122(a) settlement primarily intended to facilitate the completion of a removal action, and that the triggering event for the statute of limitations should therefore be the completion of that removal action. But even if Appellee is correct that the Settlement Agreement is a § 122(a) settlement–an issue we need not resolve–Hobart requires the application of a three year statute of limitations running from the Settlement Agreement’s effective date, not from the removal action’s completion. Appellee says that the Contribution Limitations Provision should not be read to apply to contribution actions for costs incurred under types of administrative agreements it does not expressly mention. Appellee argues that doing so would impermissibly render that provision’s enumeration of certain triggering events meaningless.49 But as Appellee appears to recognize, we considered and rejected this argument in Hobart.50 48 Id. at 775. 49 (Appellee’s Brief at 22-27). 50 Id. at 23-24 (“In effect, this Court rewrote § 113(g)(3) in Hobart . . . .”); see Hobart, 758 F.3d at 774-75 (rejecting a similar expressio unius argument). -12- No. 14-5730, LWD PRP Group v. Alcan Corp. et al. Appellee also argues that our decision in ITT Industries, Inc. v. BorgWarner, Inc.51 prevents application of CERCLA’s Contribution Limitations Provision to settlements of the type at issue here.52 But this argument was also rejected in Hobart.53 Further, Appellee says that our interpretation in Hobart insufficiently accounts for what it calls the “Atlantic Research gap.”54 By this, Appellee means that it believes that a footnote in the Supreme Court’s Atlantic Research decision established that reimbursement is sometimes available under both § 107’s cost recovery provisions and § 113(f)’s contribution provisions.55 Accordingly, Appellee says, in such cases, CERCLA § 113(g)(2)’s statute of limitations for actions to recover the 51 506 F.3d 452 (6th Cir. 2007). 52 (Appellee’s Brief at 26). 53 758 F.3d at 772 n.12 (“To the extent that ITT Industries holds that § 113(g)(3) governs only contribution actions stemming from § 122(g) or (h) settlements, [our prior decision in] RSR Corporation forecloses such a result.” (internal citation omitted)). Moreover, ITT Industries was concerned with whether a § 113(f) contribution action could be brought for costs incurred under a particular § 122(a) settlement at all, not with what the statute of limitations would be. And although there is language in that case suggesting that no contribution action was permitted for costs incurred under § 122(a) settlements, ITT Indus. Corp, 506 F.3d at 461 (“[W]e must interpret § 113(g)’s omission of settlements reached pursuant to § 122(a) to mean that settlements under that subsection are insufficient to constitute an administratively approved settlement under § 113(f)(3)(B).”), that language came only after we had already concluded that the settlement in question did not resolve any liability. Id. at 459-60. We have subsequently held that “the defining feature of an ‘administrative settlement’ is that the agreement ‘resolve[s] [the PRP’s] liability to the United States or a State for some or all of a response action for some or all of the costs of such action . . . .’” Hobart, 758 F.3d at 768 (quoting CERCLA § 113(f)(3)(B)) (alterations and omission in original). On this understanding, the language in question from ITT Industries merely provided additional support for a holding that was already determined by the conclusion that the agreement at issue in that case did not resolve any liability. Thus, Hobart concluded that a § 122(a) settlement that differed from the ITT Industries agreement in that it resolved liability could support a § 113(f) contribution claim. Both parties at least implicitly accept that interpretation here, (Appellee’s Brief at 16); (Appellants’ Brief at 13), and we accept it as well. 54 (Appellee’s Brief at 14-17). 55 See Atl. Research Corp., 551 U.S. at 139 n.6. -13- No. 14-5730, LWD PRP Group v. Alcan Corp. et al. cost of removal actions, which does not begin to run until the removal action is completed, is more appropriate.56 But Appellee overreads Atlantic Research. The footnote it cites merely reserves the question of whether the remedies overlap or not.57 Moreover, in Hobart, we clarified that even if a settlement requires PRPs to perform a removal action, a lawsuit to recover the costs of that removal action is a contribution action under § 113(f), not a cost recovery action under § 107, and is thus subject to the ordinary statute of limitations for contribution actions.58 Next, Appellee says that legislative history supports its reading of CERCLA’s statute of limitations provisions.59 Appellee did not make this argument to the district court, and it is therefore forfeited.60 Moreover, it is foreclosed by Hobart, where it was raised and thus implicitly rejected.61 Because a panel of this Court may not overturn a prior panel’s reported decision, we need not, and will not, revisit any of the above arguments, which we have already rejected in Hobart. Appellee’s policy arguments against the result reached in Hobart fare no better. Appellee says that Hobart has created and will continue to create premature litigation and has undermined and will continue to undermine the EPA’s ability to agree to early settlements.62 As with Appellee’s 56 (Appellee’s Brief at 14-17). 57 Atl. Research Corp., 551 U.S. at 139 n.6 (“We do not decide whether [costs analogous to those in question here] are recoverable under § 113(f), § 107(a), or both.”). 58 Hobart, 758 F.3d at 772. 59 (Appellee’s Brief at 29-34). 60 R. 914 (Response to Motion to Dismiss). 61 See Appellants’ Brief at 34-38, Hobart, 758 F.3d 757 (No. 13-3273), ECF No. 54. 62 (Appellee’s Brief at 34-38). -14- No. 14-5730, LWD PRP Group v. Alcan Corp. et al. other arguments for why Hobart should have been decided differently, only the full court, sitting en banc, would have power to reverse Hobart’s holding. Finally, Appellee argues that the parties intended the statute of limitations to run from the completion of the removal action, rather than from the effective date of the Settlement Agreement. In support, Appellee points to the fact that many of the Appellants signed tolling agreements more than three years after the Settlement Agreement’s effective date.63 Appellee argues that “[t]he intentions of the parties to the [Settlement Agreement] (EPA and [Appellee] LWD PRP Group), coupled with the intentions of the parties to the tolling agreements (EPA, [Appellee] LWD PRP Group, and [some of the Appellants]), must be taken into account by this Court in interpreting these two relevant contracts central to the statute of limitations issue.”64 This argument fails for several reasons. First, Appellee forfeited it by failing to advance it before the district court.65 Second, even if we overlooked this forfeiture, the tolling agreements did no more than exclude a defined “tolling period” from counting towards the statute of limitations or other time based defenses in order to “facilitate settlement negotiations.”66 This does not, as Appellee suggests, necessarily mean that Appellants believed the statute of limitations had not yet run. It could mean, 63 (Appellee’s Brief at 20-21). 64 (Appellee’s Brief at 21). Appellee asserts that the EPA was a party to the tolling agreements, but the tolling agreements included in the record nowhere mention the EPA. See R. 914-3 (Tolling Agreements). The signature pages for the tolling agreements were not filed due to volume, R. 914 at 28 n.8 (Response to Motion to Dismiss at 21 n.8), which makes it difficult to conclusively determine whether the EPA was a party to the tolling agreements. Even if the EPA were a party to the tolling agreements our analysis would remain unchanged. 65 R. 914 (Response to Motion to Dismiss). 66 R. 914-3 at 1 (Tolling Agreements at 1). -15- No. 14-5730, LWD PRP Group v. Alcan Corp. et al. for example, that Appellants valued a settlement because litigating the statute of limitations issue would be expensive and potentially uncertain. Moreover, the limitations period is statutory, not contractual. The EPA and Appellee did not have the power to agree to lengthen the time within which the Appellee could bring claims against third parties, even if the Settlement Agreement had clearly expressed their intent to do so. And even if Appellee were correct that Appellants shared a mistaken understanding of the limitations period when they entered into the tolling agreements, that would not prevent Appellants from later asserting the defense as long they did so timely under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The only way that Appellee could potentially leverage the tolling agreements in this case is to assert that the parties to them intended not only to exclude the time listed, but also to waive any already accrued statute of limitations defense. The language of the agreements, however, provides no support for such a reading. Rather, it simply excludes a certain period of time.67 Furthermore, some of the Appellants did not sign tolling agreements, as they had already been named in the initial complaint.68