PCE

Court Finds Triable Issue If Purchaser Can Assert Innocent Landowner Defense Due To Flawed Phase 1

Some of the more interesting CERCLA cases involve lawsuits between current and former property owners. Usually, the current owner assumes it qualifies as bona fide prospective purchaser (BFPP) or for the Innocent Landowner (ILO) Defense and sues the defendant/former owner for cost recovery. The defendant/former owner invariably files counterclaims alleging the current owner/plaintiff is not […]

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NYSDOH Lowers Vapor Intrusion Action Levels for TCE

As anyone who has gone through the New York State Brownfield Cleanup Program (BCP) is all too aware, the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) has an important role in the cleanup process. The NYSDOH is responsible for determining that work completed under the NYSDEC remedial programs are protective of public health for the

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Lender that Sold Contaminated Property Agrees to $1.4MM Settlement

We have previously reported on instances where banks have incurred cleanup costs in connection with properties they have sold.  For some examples, click here, here, here, here and here The latest installment of this saga involves Bank of America (BOA) which agreed to pay $1.4MM as part of a settlement involving a dry cleaner property that a

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Cal Appeals Ct Affirms $2MM judgment against foreclosing bank for failure to complete remediation is

The foreclosing lender in Hoang v. California Pacific Bank, 2014 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 5230 (July 23, 2014) made some curious decisions and the result was the bank was ordered to pay damages to the purchaser that exceed the sales price of the property. The irony is that the lender probably complied with the CERCLA

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9th Circuit Finds Shopping Center Owner Did Not Establish BFPP Status for Dry Cleaner Contamination

We have previously discussed the series of district court rulings in Voggenthaler v Maryland Square LLC where homeowners and the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection (NDEP) sued past and former owners of a shopping center and operators of a former dry cleaner because of a mile-long groundwater plume resulting from PCE spills from the dry cleaner

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4th Circuit Allows Landlord Cost Recovery To Proceed

Last year, we criticized the ruling in Stratford Holdings LLC v Fog Cap Retail Investors LLC where the district court for the southern district court of Georgia appeared to conflate reporting obligation of section 103 of CERCLA with the cost recovery and contribution provisions of CERCLA when the court granted a motion to dismiss by the defendant

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Historic Dry Cleaners At Heart of Two Key NJ Spill Cases-Part 2

In our second post on recent NJ Spill Act decisions involving historic dry cleaners, we examine New Jersey Schools Development Authority v. Marcantuone, 2012 N.J. Super. LEXIS 173 (App. Div. 10/29/12) where the appellate division ruled that a property owner who acquired a site in 1985 without performing environmental due diligence could not qualify for

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Historic Dry Cleaners At Heart of Two Key NJ Spill Act Cases-Part 1

2012 has turned out to be a significant year for NJ Spill Act litigation. Two opinions from this fall have been particularly notable to transactional attorneys because they involved a very common scenario encountered in urban areas-namely, properties with a history of numerous dry cleaner operators. Because dry cleaners are small businesses, their environmental impacts

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Georgia District Court Narrowly Construes Right of Cost Recovery

There is no polite way to sugarcoat the opinion of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in Stratford Holdings LLC v Fog Cap Retail Investors LLC and Footlocker Retail , Inc. , No 1:11-C-3463 (Sept. 17, 2012).This is a bad decision that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of CERCLA. If followed

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