Court Opinion

ID: 9860640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:28:25.564161+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:17.175037
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
dissenting.
This appeal presents a statute-of-limitations question: did appellants file their claim within one year of their “discovery of *20damages,” as required by N.J.S.A. 58:10-23.11k? The administrative agency and the Appellate Division both held, as would I, that the claim was time-barred.
No matter how we dramatize the underlying lawsuit, the fact remains that the case does not project a clash of opposing policy considerations in the field of environmental law, and most assuredly it does not require us to come to grips, as the Court purports to do, with the portentous issue of “[h]ow * * * an environmental remediation system best accomplish[es]” the “clean up [of] the environmental damage caused by the Krysowaty Farm.” Ante at 17, 583 A.2d at 745. What it does require is that we faithfully implement the legislative directive imposing a limitation of one year from the discovery of damage for filing claims against the Spill Fund.
Appellants filed their claim on September 25, 1987. The brannigan over the Krysowaty Farm’s threat to neighboring water supplies had erupted in 1982. Appellants and their neighbors, numbering about one hundred, had petitioned government officials to clean up the site and had voiced opposition to the installation of an alternative water supply for the area. On October 30,1985 — almost two years before appellants filed their claim, and the date no later than which both the Spill Fund Administrator and the Appellate Division concluded that appellants had discovered their damage — Dr. Jorge Berkowitz, Administrator of Hazardous Site Mitigation in the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), told the Buonviaggios by letter that Hillsborough Township had enacted the “Krysowaty Farm Mandatory Water Connection Ordinance,” effective October 17, 1985. Because the ordinance declared appellants’ property to be a danger to health and welfare due to the threat of contamination, appellants were prohibited from using their well water. Dr. Berkowitz’s letter further informed appellants that the ordinance required them to connect their property to municipal water lines and to seal their private well, and that the hook-up and installation could be done cost-free if the Buonviaggios made the necessary arrangements with DEP by No*21vember 4, 1985, but that after that date appellants would have to bear the cost.
The Buonviaggios therefore knew, on October 30, 1985, that their well had to be sealed. And they knew that the cost of operating their business with the alternative water supply was more than they could stand, which is why they wanted DEP and Hillsborough to provide a pumping system to draw water from the contiguous Raritan River. That sounds like “damage” to me. Appellants may not have known the extent of that damage as of October 30th, but as the Appellate Division pointed out, “a statute of limitations runs from the date that a plaintiff has actual or imputed knowledge that an actionable claim exists, not from the date on which the claimant has knowledge of the extent of his damages.” Nor should the fact that negotiations with DEP continued after October 30th affect the result. Again as the Appellate Division correctly observed:
DEP’s willingness to engage in discussion with plaintiffs’ counsel concerning an alternative water supply to meet their peculiar needs should not work to DEP’s disadvantage. There is no proof in this case that DEP, at any time, committed to the proposal made by plaintiffs or that it acted in bad faith in stringing plaintiffs along until the statute ran. * * * We find no conduct on the part of any DEP employee which justifies the invocation of estoppel.
To suggest, as I think the Court does, ante at 16, 583 A.2d at 744, that appellants did not discover their damage, for purposes of the Spill Fund Act’s time limitation, until DEP “made its final determination on what it would do to remedy the environmental damage” makes little sense. As the Attorney General asserts,
[wjere all Spill Fund claimants to be afforded a nearly unlimited option to hold off on filing their claims until they were satisfied that remedial efforts were proceeding in accordance with their unique desires, the Spill Act’s statute of limitations would offer virtually no repose for untimely claims and would exhaust the decidedly finite resources of the Spill Fund. As the Appellate Division recognized in Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority v. Hunt, 210 N.J.Super. 76, 99 [509 A.2d 225] (App.Div.1986), “Legislatures have to draw lines when passing socially remedial legislation or nothing would get done * * *. The fund created by the [Spill Act] is finite, and the effects of hazardous discharges, while not infinite, are prolonged and unpredictable in nature.”
*22Because I am reluctant to complicate matters by investing with esoteric properties the concept of “damage” as used in the Spill Fund Act, I would affirm.
Justice POLLOCK joins in this dissent.
For reversal and remandment — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices HANDLER, O’HERN, GARIBALDI and STEIN — 5.
For affirmance — Justices CLIFFORD and POLLOCK — 2.