Fact-Dependent Suits May Delay Clarification Of CERCLA 'Arranger' Liability

摘要

EPA and other legal experts say that federal courts may be "years and years" away from resolving the full reach of arranger liability under the Superfund law because most of the relevant cases appear to be very fact-dependent, forcing parties into costly trials and litigation to resolve liability disputes. Despite a host of pending cases spawned by the 2009 Supreme Court ruling in the consolidated Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. United States and Shell Oil v. United States, Robert Fox, an attorney with Pennsylvania firm Manko, Gold, Katcher & Fox, told an environmental law conference Feb. 6 that the bulk of the pending cases are "so fact-dependent it's going to be years and years before we get some settled case law on what arranger liability is."