Court Opinion

ID: 9400906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-09 18:07:53.752592+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:48.851320
License: Public Domain

IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE

DIAMOND TOWN TIRE PROS &     )
AUTO CARE, LLC and NUCAR     )
MIDDLETOWN, LLC,             )
                             )
                 Appellants, )
                             )
        v.                   )                 C.A. No. N22A-05-010 PRW
                             )
DELAWARE DEPARTMENT OF       )
NATURAL RESOURCES AND        )
ENVIRONMENTAL CONTROL,       )
                             )
                   Appellee. )

                          Submitted: May 26, 2023
                           Decided: June 9, 2023

                                  ORDER

Upon Diamond Town Tire Pros & Auto Care, LLC and Nucar Middletown, LLC’s
 Appeal of the Final Order and Decision of the Environmental Appeals Board,
                               AFFIRMED.

      (1)   Appellants Diamond Town Tire Pros & Auto Care and NUCAR

Middletown, LLC (collectively, “Diamond Town”) have taken an appeal from an

Environmental Appeals Board (“EAB”) decision and final order.

      (2)   Before arguing the substance of that appeal, Appellee Delaware

Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (“DNREC”) moved

to dismiss it arguing this Court lacked jurisdiction because the appeal was
    untimely. The Court denied DNREC’s motion.1

           (3)     In this appeal, Diamond Town argues the EAB’s decision wasn’t

    supported by substantial evidence because DNREC’s investigator failed to conduct

    a proper investigation.2 Specifically, Diamond Town says the purported fact that

    a mix of tires—some scrap, some not—were stored together in a pile does not

    perforce render it a scrap-tire pile.3 Diamond Town insists that by failing to

    quantify the amount and failing to sort the type of tires in the pile, the DNREC

    investigator failed to conduct an adequate investigation—thus improperly

    conflating used tires with scrap tires.4

           (4)     According to DNREC, its investigation sufficed, the EAB’s decision

    was supported by substantial evidence, and the Court should affirm that decision.5

           (5)     In May 2019, a DNREC investigator inspected Diamond Town’s

1
   Diamond Town Tire Pros & Auto Care, LLC v. Del. Dep’t of Natural Resources and Env’t
Control, 2023 WL 2985256, at *4 (Del. Super. Ct. Apr. 17, 2023).
2
     Opening Br. at 6 (D.I. 12) (“The uncontroverted evidence was that DNREC never determined
the actual number of used tires that Diamond Town had set aside in its tire pile to be removed by
its used tire hauler that actually met the definition of a scrap tire.” (emphasis added)).
3
      Reply Br. at 3 (D.I. 25)
          A used tire that is prudent or practical for vehicular use is not a scrap tire merely
          because it is stored in a tire pile with tires that do meet the definition of a scrap tire.
          A used tire that is prudent or practical for vehicular use is not a scrap tire merely
          because the facility that is storing the tires does not sell used tires to the public. A
          used tire that is prudent or practical for vehicular use is not a scrap tire merely
          because the owner or operator of the facility does not barrel stack the tires.
4
      Id. at 6.
5
      Answering Br. at 9-12 (D.I. 23).

                                                     -2-
    facility where she found a large tire pile.6 Because Diamond Town’s manager

    identified it as the business’s scrap-tire pile, because the tires were stored outside,

    and because the tires were thrown together in a pile, the investigator concluded the

    pile was indeed a scrap-tire pile.7 After counting more than 100 tires in the pile,

    the investigator determined that Diamond Town was a scrap-tire facility and issued

    a notice of violation for failure to comply with the appropriate regulations

    governing scrap-tire facilities.8    Three months later, a DNREC investigator

    returned “and again observed over 100 scrap tires.”9 Then more than a year after

    the second inspection, a DNREC investigator returned for another follow-up

    inspection.10 At the third inspection, the investigator observed, again, a similar tire

    pile with over 100 scrap tires.11 And because Diamond Town had failed to comply

    with the regulations governing scrap-tire facilities, DNREC issued the Order of

    the Secretary that is the subject of the EAB’s decision and the present appeal.12

6
      Id. at 2.
7
      Id. at 2-5.
8
      Id.
9
      Id. at 2.
10
      Id. at 2-3.
11
     Id. at 2-5. Before DNREC conducted the third inspection, Diamond Town confirmed in its
2019 Scrap Tire Annual Report “that there were 100 scrap tires then on the property.” Id. at 3
(citing Hr’g Tr. at 36).
12
      Id.

                                              -3-
          (6)      On March 25, 2022, the EAB issued its Final Order and Decision.13

 That decision concluded Diamond Town’s “tire pile constitute[d] a scrap tire

 facility as that term is used in the regulations.”14 EAB heard testimony from two

 witnesses—the DNREC investigator and Diamond Town owner James Barnes—

 and examined the evidence provided by the parties.15

          (7)      The EAB decided 6-0 to affirm the Secretary’s Order.16 But, even

 upon doing so, it admonished both parties.

          (8)      The EAB admonished DNREC for the “presumptuous and seemingly

 casual way in which DNREC made its calculations regarding the number of scrap

 tires in the pile at the time of its inspections.”17

          (9)      The EAB admonished Diamond Town for its failure to “physically

 separate scrap tires from used tires” and its failure to keep proper records.18

          (10) The EAB concluded that, given their mandate, it could not conclude

13
     D.I. 1, Ex. A (“Decision and Final Order”).
14
     Id. at 9.
15
     Id. at 4-8.
16
     Id. at 9.
17
    Id. (“[T]he Board would like to make it clear that it was uneasy with the presumptuous and
seemingly casual way in which DNREC made its calculations regarding the number of scrap tires
in the pile at the time of its inspections. In light of the fact that the number of ‘scrap’ tires in a pile
is determinative of whether the pile will be judged a scrap tire facility the Board encourages
DNREC to explore alternative methods for making that crucial finding.”).
18
    Id. (“The Board believes that better record keeping practices and physical separation of the
scrap tires and used tires on the part of Diamond could have established the missing evidence to
support its theory of the case.”).

                                                   -4-
 “the Secretary’s decision [was] not supported by the evidence on the record before

 the Board.”19 And therefore affirmed the decision of the DNREC Secretary.20

           (11) When reviewing decisions of the EAB, this Court must decide

 “whether the decision is supported by substantial evidence and is free from legal

 error.”21 Substantial evidence, in this respect, means evidence “which a reasonable

 mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion.”22 “It is more than a ‘mere

 scintilla but less than a preponderance of the evidence.’”23

           (12) Reviewing the EAB’s Decision, and the parties’ briefs, the Court finds

 there was substantial evidence on which the EAB could affirm the Secretary’s

 decision.

           (13) DNREC’s investigator issued Diamond Town a notice of violation

 because of its tire pile, which the investigator determined constituted a scrap-tire

19
     Id. (alteration added) (quoting DEL. CODE ANN. tit. 7, § 6008(b) (2021)).
20
     Id.
21
    Keep Our Wells Clean v. State of Del. Dep’t of Nat. Res. & Env’t Control, 243 A.3d 441, 446
(Del. 2020) (citing State of Del. Dep’t of Nat. Res. & Env’t Control v. McGinnis Auto & Mobile
Home Salvage, 225 A.3d 1251, 1254 (Del. 2020)); DEL. CODE. ANN. tit. 29, § 10142(d) (2021)
(“The Court, when factual determinations are at issue, shall take due account of the experience and
specialized competence of the agency and of the purposes of the basic law under which the agency
has acted. The Court’s review, in the absence of actual fraud, shall be limited to a determination
of whether the agency’s decision was supported by substantial evidence on the record before the
agency.”).
22
   Keep Our Wells Clean, 243 A.3d at 446 (quoting Prunckun v. Del. Dep’t of Health & Soc.
Servs., 201 A.3d 525, 540 (Del. 2019)).
23
     Id. (quoting Powell v. OTAC, Inc., 223 A.3d 864, 870 (Del. 2019)).

                                                -5-
 pile.24 More than a year later when DNREC conducted a subsequent investigation,

 there was still a large tire pile present.25 Diamond Town acknowledged the notice

 of violation it received but didn’t change its practices and continued to “not keep

 a count of the number of tires in the [tire] pile at any given time.”26

          (14) Diamond Town failed to meaningfully comply with the 2019 notice

 of violation it received.27 And when it filed its 2019 scrap-tire facility report, as

 instructed by DNREC, it said it “conducted no investigation at that time to

 determine whether it should be considered a scrap tire facility and did not look at

 the regulations.”28

          (15) Given the DNREC inspector’s observations and Diamond Town’s

 inability to refute those observations because of its own poor practices and record

 keeping, the EAB had substantial evidence to find in favor of DNREC and affirm

 the Secretary’s decision.

24
    Decision and Final Order at 7 (noting at that inspection, Diamond Town’s facility manager
“showed [the DNREC inspector] to what he called the scrap tire pile” and the inspector did not
investigate further to determine “if any of the tires in the pile were in a usable condition especially
since [the facility manager] had referred to the pile as ‘the scrap tire’ pile.’” (citing Hr’g Tr. at
50)); id. (explaining the investigator’s method of counting and/or approximating the quality of
tires).
25
     Id. at 8 (explaining the findings at the follow-up inspection conducted in December 2020).
26
     Id. at 6 (citing Hr’g Tr. at 42).
27
     See id. at 5-6.
28
     Id. at 5 (citing Hr’g Tr. at 31).

                                                 -6-
    (16) The Court will do the same. Accordingly, the decision of the EAB is

AFFIRMED.

   IT IS SO ORDERED.

                                         __________________________
                                         Paul R. Wallace, Judge

                                   -7-