Court Opinion

ID: 9702557
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:16:49.215193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:38.799905
License: Public Domain

O’HERN, J.,
dissenting.
This case is an illustration of Murphy’s Law of unintended consequences.1 A fund created to compensate the innocent victims of past unsafe landfill practices has been transformed into a windfall for dump owners.
In 1977, Voorhees Township purchased the Buzby Brothers Landfill for $1.00. The previous owners, the Buzbys and others, had discharged solid waste at this facility and, pursuant to N.J.S.A. 58:10-23.11 to -23.24 (the Spill Act), Voorhees is or may be jointly or severally liable to clean up the site. The Buzby Landfill is a notorious site that has housed large amounts of environmentally hazardous wastes for over thirty years. The Landfill consists of two tracts of property amounting to about fifty-six acres. Strawn v. Canuso, 140 N.J. 43, 49, 657 A.2d 420 (1995).
In 1986, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) directed Voorhees to install monitoring wells at the site. Voorhees eventually agreed to undertake remedial measures necessitated by the existence of the landfill on the property. Voorhees seeks to recover from the Sanitary Landfill Contingency Fund approximately $1 million in damages for the costs incurred. DEP denied Voorhees’ claim on the basis that Voorhees was an owner of the landfill and thus was itself liable for the closure costs pursuant to N.J.S.A 13:1E-103. The Court has seemingly turned the statute on its head and, instead of imposing liability for closure *134costs on the owners of landfills, has rewarded them by cleaning up and restoring their dumpsites at the expense of the taxpayers.
The Sanitary Landfill Facility Closure and Contingency Fund Act (Closure Act), L. 1981, c. 306, N.J.S.A 13:1E-100 to -116, imposes on owners or operators of sanitary landfills responsibility for the proper closure of landfills. The Closure Act requires each landfill owner or operator to establish an escrow account for the closure of the landfill. N.J.S.A 13:1E-109. It defines closure costs to include “the costs of the placement of earthen or vegetative cover, the installation of methane gas vents or monitors and leachate monitoring wells or collection systems at the site of any sanitary landfill facility____” N.J.S.A 13:1E-I02a.
The Closure Act also established the Sanitary Landfill Facility Contingency Fund (Fund), N.J.S.A 13:1E-105. DEP administers the Fund, which is run with the tax revenues (a tipping tax) collected from all sanitary landfill facilities, based on the amount of waste accepted for disposal. N.J.S.A 13:1E-104. The Fund is made strictly liable for “all direct and indirect damages, no matter by whom sustained, proximately resulting from the operations or closure of any sanitary landfill.” N.J.S.A 13:1E-I06a. The characteristic beneficiaries to be compensated are those living in the neighborhood of the landfill who have suffered damages, such as diminution of property values, from the presence of the landfill. Citizens for Equity v. New Jersey Dep’t of Envtl. Protection, 126 N.J. 391, 394, 599 A.2d 507 (1991).
It stands to reason that the Legislature would not in one breath impose upon the owners of landfills the duty to clean up and in the next breath give them the money to do the cleanup. If instead of selling the landfill to Voorhees for $1.00, the Buzbys had given or devised the property to Voorhees — would Voorhees be able to have the State (through its taxpayers) clean up the site? If the answer is yes, as the majority asserts, could the Buzbys have given the property to family or friends and enabled them to receive a State-funded cleanup? The answer to me is obviously no. Yet the majority’s logic would go so far.
*135DEP argues that the recent adoption of the “Municipal Landfill Site Closure, Remediation and Redevelopment Act” (the Redevelopment Act), L. 1996, c. 124, N.J.S.A 13:1E-116.1 to -116.7, supports its interpretation of the Legislature’s intent. The Redevelopment Act authorizes DEP to enter a redevelopment agreement covering municipal landfills closed prior to January 1, 1982 and makes the developer eligible to recover 75% of the costs of remediation and closure of the landfill from a new fund. The Act sets forth a number of factors related to the benefits of redevelopment, including a potential for job creation, economic development, the degree of economic and related social distress in the area to be redeveloped, and the likelihood that the project will generate enough sales tax income to repay the Redevelopment Fund for the costs of closure. N.J.S.A 13:1E-116.3. The Attorney General argues that “the Legislature would not have needed to create a new source of reimbursement if the total reimbursement of subsequent purchasers was already provided by [the Fund].” This is not a complete answer because the Court’s opinion is limited to that class of purchasers who acquired landfills before the 1982 Closure Act. However, several other new initiatives providing mechanisms for recouping cleanup costs would also be unnecessary in the case of pre-1982 acquisitions under the majority’s theory. See Stuart J. Lieberman, Buying, selling contaminated sites, 6 N.J.L. 1055 (Apr. 28, 1997) (outlining federal and state initiatives).
Any further doubt about DEP’s interpretation of the legislative intent evaporates under the facts of this case. As the Appellate Division noted, Voorhees deposited its municipal waste at the landfill for many years prior to the site’s closure and Voorhees’ subsequent purchase. 291 N.J.Super. 183, 187, 677 A.2d 218 (App.Div.1996). Voorhees is thus subject as a purchaser to strict liability for cleanup under the Spill Act unless it can show it “did not know and had no reason to know that any hazardous substance had been discharged” at the landfill. See N.J.S.A 58:10-23.11(d)(b)(i). Voorhees may also be subject to liability under the Spill Act as a generator of the hazardous waste accumulated at the site.
*136We are informed that to affirm the Appellate Division decision will seriously undermine the ability of DEP to administer the Fund. Voorhees was on notice that the property that it purchased would be a source of pollution. DEP has previously interpreted the language of N.J.S.A 13:1E-103 to allow claims by an innocent purchaser when the person failed to discover the existence of the landfill despite making a reasonable inquiry. See N.J.AC. 7:11-2.6(d)(1) (allowing claimants to recover if, after exercising reasonable diligence, they still had not discovered presence of landfill at time of purchase).
The Closure Act could not be more explicit in its application to closed landfills. It defines “owner or operator” as “every owner of record of any interest in land whereon a sanitary landfill facility is or has been located.” N.J.S.A 13:1E-I02b. The Court has reinterpreted the statute in order to achieve what it believes to be a preferable result. Similar arguments have been made with respect to the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601 to 9675 (1997), which was enacted in response to evidence of improper hazardous waste disposal and was designed to effect the speedy cleanup of hazardous waste sites. Transtech Indus. v. A & Z Septic Clean, 798 F.Supp. 1079, 1082 (D.N.J.1992), appeal dismissed, 5 F.3d 51 (3d Cir.1993), cert. denied, 512 U.S. 1213, 114 S.Ct. 2692, 129 L.Ed.2d 823 (1994). CERCLA imposes strict liability upon those parties falling within its terms. United States v. Kramer, 757 F.Supp. 397, 419 (D.N.J.1991). Courts have held that the purchaser of contaminated property is responsible under the Act even though the contamination did not occur during the period of ownership. See, e.g., New York v. Shore Realty Corp., 759 F.2d 1032, 1044 (2d Cir.1985). Voorhees is therefore strictly liable under CERCLA.2 All that the Court’s decision accomplishes is to force a circularity of actions. DEP will be required to pursue Voorhees under our Spill Act and perhaps under CERCLA *137to obtain reimbursement of the same funds distributed from the Fund.3 In the alternative, DEP may be entitled to a set-off for its Spill Act claim in the Closure Act proceedings. This circuitous approach is a waste of judicial and administrative time and resources. Voorhees is already involved in a federal lawsuit related to the Buzby Landfill. See Township of Haddon v. Royal Ins. Co. of America, 929 F.Supp. 774, 776 (D.N.J.1996).
The Court’s reliance on Vi-Concrete Company v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, 115 N.J. 1, 556 A.2d 761 (1989), is misplaced. What the Court actually held in Vi-Concrete was that DEP did have authority to issue pollutant discharge elimination permits when there was “a substantial evidential basis for DEP’s belief that the landfill is discharging pollutants into the State’s waters. Moreover, DEP must proceed by rulemaking to set forth the standards that govern application of the [Water Pollution Control Act’s] permit procedures to closed landfills.” 115 N.J. at 16, 556 A.2d 761. In essence, the Court said that if DEP proceeded by rulemaking and had a basis for believing that a landfill was discharging pollutants, the owner could be required to take the remedial measures required by law. All that the Court decided in Vi-Concrete was that DEP had to have regulations in place before it could categorically issue water pollution permits to the innocent acquirers of sanitary landfills.
I would reverse the judgment of the Appellate Division and deny Voorhees’ claim.
Justice POLLOCK joins in this opinion.
For affirmance — Chief Justice PORITZ, and Justices GARIBALDI, STEIN and COLEMAN — 4.
For reversal — Justices O’HERN and POLLOCK — 2.

 "Murphy's Law" states that if there is a possibility for something to go wrong, it will go wrong. Sanders v. Weaver, 583 So.2d 1326, 1327 (Ala.1991).

 If the Legislature does not sooner amend the Act, Voorhees may return to the Fund to recover cleanup costs imposed on it under CERCLA.

 The Spill Act is the State analog to CERCLA; it also imposes strict liability. SC Holdings, Inc. v. A.A.A. Realty Co., 935 F.Supp. 1354, 1365 (D.N.J.1996).