Opinion ID: 762018
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Procedural Issue

Text: 63 The district court's post-trial revisitation of the potentially responsible party issue came as a considerable surprise to Prisco, who thought with good reason that the question had been laid to rest in her favor at the summary judgment stage in Prisco III. If that was going to be an issue at trial, she contends, she should have been told so in order to enable her to address it. Invoking the second branch of the law of the case doctrine, Prisco asserts that her reversal of fortune constitutes reversible error. 64 The second branch of the law of the case doctrine is implicated when a court reconsiders its own ruling in the absence of an intervening ruling of a higher court. See United States v. Uccio, 940 F.2d 753, 757-58 (2d Cir.1991). 10 It holds that when a court has ruled on an issue, that decision should generally be adhered to by that court in subsequent stages in the same case. Id. at 758. 65 The rule is not absolute, however. [T]he decision whether or not to apply law-of-the-case is ... informed principally by the concern that disregard of an earlier ruling not be allowed to prejudice the party seeking the benefit of the doctrine. Id. (citing United States v. Birney, 686 F.2d 102, 107 (2d Cir.1982); First National Bank of Hollywood v. American Foam Rubber Corp., 530 F.2d 450, 453 n. 3 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 858, 97 S.Ct. 157, 50 L.Ed.2d 135 (1976)). Prejudice in this context does not mean harm resulting from the failure to adhere to the prior decision, but instead  'refers to a lack of' ... sufficient 'opportunity to prepare armed with the knowledge that'  the prior ruling is not deemed controlling. Id. (quoting Birney, 686 F.2d at 107). 66 In this case, the district court departed from its prior ruling in order to correct an error of law. This is an obviously valid reason for such a departure. See id. But revisiting, without notice, the responsible-party issue, which ultimately turned on the sufficiency of Prisco's evidence, raises the specter of severe prejudice to Prisco if it deprived her of the opportunity to prepare and present evidence on that issue at trial. 67 Commendably candid concessions made by Prisco on appeal, however, plainly establish that she was not in fact prejudiced by the district court's turnaround. She expressly admits that she would not have had proof to establish that any specific defendants brought hazardous substances to the site, even had she been timely apprised that this was to be a key issue at trial. In her brief, Prisco concedes that she 68 lacked direct knowledge of what was specifically contained in each waste hauler's materials. Once hazardous substances were discovered at the site after months of deliveries of many truckloads of materials by many defendants, materials that were mixed and co-mingled together, the District Court's insistence that plaintiff produce direct evidence of the ingredients and/or chemicals contained in each defendant's waste placed upon the plaintiff a burden she could never meet. 69 At oral argument, Prisco's counsel clarified the extent of Prisco's concession by stating in no uncertain terms that she had no evidence beyond what she introduced at the trial to demonstrate that particular defendants conveyed hazardous substances to the landfill. (Oral argument, Oct. 7, 1998). Prisco therefore was not prejudiced because she admittedly could not carry her burden of proof on this crucial issue at a new trial were we to grant one. 70 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court's judgment on Prisco's CERCLA claim.II. Whether the district court erred in dismissing Prisco's RCRA claim against the private defendants A. RCRA 71 RCRA is a comprehensive environmental statute that governs the treatment, storage, and disposal of solid and hazardous waste. Meghrig v. KFC Western, Inc., 516 U.S. 479, 483, 116 S.Ct. 1251, 134 L.Ed.2d 121 (1996). Unlike [CERCLA], RCRA is not principally designed to effectuate the cleanup of toxic waste sites or to compensate those who have attended to the remediation of environmental hazards. Id.Its purpose is to reduce the generation of hazardous waste and to ensure the proper treatment, storage, and disposal of that waste which is nonetheless generated, 'so as to minimize the present and future threat to human health and the environment.'  Id. (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 6902(b)). 72 In furtherance of that goal, RCRA contains a private attorney-general provision allowing citizen lawsuits for injunctive relief in certain circumstances. See RCRA § 7002, 42 U.S.C. § 6972. One such circumstance, invoked here, is described in § 7002(a)(1)(B) (42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B)), which provides any person with a right of action 73 against any person, including the United States and any other governmental instrumentality or agency, to the extent permitted by the eleventh amendment to the Constitution, and including any past or present generator, past or present transporter, or past or present owner or operator of a treatment, storage, or disposal facility, who has contributed or who is contributing to the past or present handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or disposal of any solid or hazardous waste which may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment. 74 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B). 75 Thus, in order to establish rights under this section, a RCRA plaintiff must show that: (1) the defendant was or is a generator or transporter of solid or hazardous waste or owner or operator of a solid or hazardous waste treatment, storage or disposal facility, (2) the defendant has contributed or is contributing to the handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or disposal of solid or hazardous waste, as defined by RCRA, and (3) that the solid or hazardous waste in question may pose an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment. See id.; ABB Indus. Sys., Inc. v. Prime Tech., Inc., 120 F.3d 351, 359 (2d Cir.1997). B. The Decision in Prisco III 76 In Prisco III, the district court considered cross-motions for summary judgment on the RCRA claim as it did on the CERCLA claim. See 902 F.Supp. at 393-96. It recognized that construction and demolition material is a form of solid waste and thus that each of the defendants was potentially liable as an operator, generator, or transporter contributing to the handling, storage, transportation, or disposal of solid waste. See id. The court found further that Prisco had established that at the time of the preliminary site assessment, an imminent and substantial risk of harm may have existed. See id. at 394-95. Recognizing, however, that the equitable relief to which Prisco might be entitled under RCRA would lie only to remedy an ongoing RCRA violation, the court declined to grant summary judgment to Prisco because there remained a triable issue of fact as to whether the possible risk of harm continued to exist. See id. at 395. C. The decision in Prisco VI 77 In its post bench-trial opinion, the district court explained its conclusion that none of the private defendants was liable under RCRA. Prisco VI, 1996 WL 596546, at  15. The court recognized that it previously had found that each defendant was potentially liable as a past generator or transporter of, or operator with regard to, solid waste and that a risk of imminent and substantial endangerment might exist at the Prisco landfill generally. See id. at  14. The court concluded, however, that these factors were insufficient to affix RCRA liability to any particular defendant, reasoning that Prisco was further obligated to establish a link between the waste attributable to an individual defendant and the risk of imminent and substantial endangerment. See id. at  14-15. The district court rejected the notion that RCRA's use of the language may--any solid or hazardous waste which may present an imminent and substantial endangerment--sufficed to bring within RCRA's scope anyone who contributed any solid or hazardous waste to a site at which there later arose a possibility of risk to health or the environment from a particular solid or hazardous waste. See id. at  15. The court emphasized RCRA's statutory purpose of forcing all parties in the chain of waste handling to contribute to the costs that arise from their activities, inferring from this that the statute was designed to force covered parties to internalize costs they themselves imposed. See id. But the court as fact-finder then concluded that Prisco had failed to connect any individual private defendant to any particular solid waste with known hazardous properties, just as she has not connected individual defendants to hazardous substances in the CERCLA analysis. Id. D. Analysis 78 Prisco contends that the district court misconstrued RCRA § 7002(a)(1)(B) ( 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B)) in requiring her to prove that the waste attributable to particular defendants was linked to a risk of imminent and substantial endangerment. She argues that such a requirement is contrary to the statutory goal, recognized by the district court, that generators and other persons involved in the handling, storage, treatment, transportation or disposal of hazardous wastes must share in the responsibility for the abatement of the hazards arising from their activities. Id. (quoting H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 1133, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 119 (1984), reprinted in 1984 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5649, 5690). 79 But the plain language of § 7002 applies the statutory remedies against those who handle, store, treat, transport, or dispose of waste which may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment. 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B). We conclude therefore that the district court correctly interpreted § 7002(a)(1)(B) to require Prisco to prove that particular defendants' waste was of a type that could contribute to an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment that may exist. 80 Did the district court correctly determine that Prisco failed to prove that particular defendants were connected to particular waste that might give rise to an imminent and substantial endangerment? In support of her argument that it did not, Prisco simply points to the same evidence upon which she attempted to rely in the CERCLA context in order to link particular defendants to hazardous substances. Just as the district court was not clearly in error in finding this evidence unpersuasive in the CERCLA context, however, it was not clearly in error in reaching the same conclusion in the RCRA context. Again, we note Prisco's acceptance of the district court's findings of fact and her conceded inability to adduce evidence linking particular defendants to harmful materials. 81 Finally, Prisco argues that the district court's resolution of her RCRA claim was a revisitation without notice of a prior ruling in her favor in Prisco III that the defendants were persons under RCRA. Not so. Nothing in Prisco VI suggested that the court no longer viewed the defendants as persons under RCRA. Indeed, the analysis of the RCRA claim in Prisco VI explicitly acknowledged that, unlike in the CERCLA context, all the defendants were potentially responsible parties, either as operators of a solid waste disposal facility or as generators or transporters of solid waste, consistent with its holding in Prisco III. See 1996 WL 596546, at  14. The rejection of Prisco's RCRA claim in Prisco VI turned on the separate, theretofore unaddressed question of whether Prisco could prove that the waste attributable to particular defendants was linked to an imminent and substantial endangerment. See id. at  14-15. There was no inconsistency. 11 The district court did not err in dismissing Prisco's RCRA claim.III. Whether the district court erred in dismissing the RCRA claim as to the state defendants 82 Prisco's RCRA claim against the various state defendants 12 arose from Bubenicek's and Ward's role in the Prisco landfill operation. Specifically, Prisco argued below that state officials were aware of Bubenicek and Ward's sting operation as well as their role in operating the Prisco landfill, and that state officials acted to prevent closure of the landfill in order to facilitate Bubenicek's and Ward's efforts. Prisco contended that this conduct would support liability on theories of ratification, apparent authority, or respondeat superior. The district court disagreed as to each theory. 83 We do not reach the issues of ratification, apparent authority, or respondeat superior. The decision below must be affirmed in any event on another basis, albeit one not explicitly employed by the district court. We may, of course, affirm the judgment of the district court 'on any basis for which there is a record sufficient to permit conclusions of law, including grounds upon which the district court did not rely.'  Westport Bank & Trust Co. v. Geraghty, 90 F.3d 661, 668 (2d Cir.1996) (quoting Cromwell Assocs. v. Oliver Cromwell Owners, Inc., 941 F.2d 107, 111 (2d Cir.1991)). 84 The state defendants' vicarious liability becomes academic in light of Prisco's inability to prove that the waste material attributable to any particular defendant, private or otherwise, is linked to an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment, as previously discussed. In other words, nothing turns on the question of whether New York and its agencies may be held accountable for the actions of Bubenicek or Ward because Prisco cannot prove that Bubenicek's or Ward's conduct, as operators of the Prisco landfill, triggers RCRA liability. Prisco concedes that she cannot satisfy the requirements of RCRA under the district court's interpretation of that statute, which we hold to be correct. It follows that she could not succeed in establishing RCRA liability as to Bubenicek or Ward, despite the highly questionable nature of their conduct. Consequently, the state and its agencies could not be liable even were we to conclude that the district court erred in rejecting any of Prisco's theories of vicarious liability. We affirm on this ground.