Shockley v. Hoechst Celanese Corp.
| Citation | 996 F.2d 1212 |
| Decision Date | 04 May 1993 |
| Docket Number | AQUA-TECH,Nos. 92-1521,92-1543,s. 92-1521 |
| Parties | NOTICE: Fourth Circuit I.O.P. 36.6 states that citation of unpublished dispositions is disfavored except for establishing res judicata, estoppel, or the law of the case and requires service of copies of cited unpublished dispositions of the Fourth Circuit. Milton M. SHOCKLEY, Jr.; Roy C. Young, Jr.; W. H. Alford, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. HOECHST CELANESE CORPORATION, Defendant & Third Party Plaintiff-Appellant, andENVIRONMENTAL, INCORPORATED, formerly known as Groce Laboratories, Incorporated; William H. Groce, III; Union Carbide Chemicals and Plastics Company, Incorporated; Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation, Defendants, v. ALLIED CHEMICAL NUCLEAR PRODUCTS, INCORPORATED; Platt Saco Lowell Corporation; Square D Company; W R Grace & Co, Connecticut; The Dow Chemical Company; General Battery Corporation; C. H. Patrick & Company, Incorporated; Textron, Inc; Steel Heddle Manufacturing Company; Tanner Chemical Company, Incorporated; Baxter Healthcare Corporation; Apache Corporation; Columbia Organic Chemical Company, Incorporated; Carolina Plating & Stamping Company; Bridgestone/ Firestone, Incorporated; Basf Corporation; Southern Railway Company; Coats & Clark, Incorporated; Exide Corporation; North American Phillips Corporation; J P Stevens & Co; Phillips Fibers Corporation; American Monorail, Incorporated; Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Company; Spartan Express, Incorporated; Overnite Transportation Company; Roadway Express; Central Transport, Inc.; Hans Fischer; Browning-Ferris Industries Chemical Services, Incorporated; C. R. Bard, Incorporated; Shakespeare Company; King's Laboratory, Incorporated; M. Lowenstein Corporation; Schlumberger Industries, Incorporated; Chase Packaging Corporation; S. W. Industries, Incorporated; McNeil PPC, Incorporated; McLean Trucking Company; JADCO, Incorporated; Greerco, Incorporated, Formerly Known as Intex Products, Incorporated; Proctor Chemical Company, Incorporated, Third Party Defendants. ROY C. YOUNG, Jr.; W. H. Alford; Milt |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit) |
Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina, at Greenville. G. Ross Anderson, Jr., District Judge. (CA-90-18-6-3)
Bradford W. Wyche, Wyche, Burgess, Freeman & Parham, P.A., Greenville, South Carolina, for Appellant
Hoechst Celanese Corp.; Walter Allen Reese, Duggan, Reese & McKinney, P.A., Greer, South Carolina, for Appellant Groce.
J. Kendall Few, Few & Few, P.A., Greenville, South Carolina, for Appellees.
David L. Freeman, Wyche, Burgess, Freeman & Parham, P.A., Greenville, South Carolina, for Appellant Hoechst Celanese Corp.
John C. Few, Few & Few, P.A., Greenville, South Carolina, for Appellees.
D.S.C.
AFFIRMED IN PART AND REVERSED IN PART.
Before WIDENER and LUTTIG, Circuit Judges, and HEANEY, Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.
Hoechst Celanese Corporation and William H. Groce, III, appeal from a judgment entered by the district court upon a jury verdict in favor of Milton M. Shockley, Jr., Roy C. Young, Jr., and W. H. Alford and from the district court's subsequent order denying appellants' renewed motions for judgment as a matter of law in this groundwater contamination case. Although we conclude that appellants were entitled to judgment on appellees' strict liability cause of action, we hold that the jury's verdict was adequately supported by three other independent theories of liability, and therefore affirm the judgment of the court below.
William H. Groce, III, worked as a chemist for Hoechst Celanese Corporation at its plant in Greer, South Carolina, from the late 1960s until 1974. 1 As part of his duties, Groce disposed of hazardous chemicals. Groce testified that Hoechst-Celanese officials stored hundreds of barrels of hazardous waste at the plant, sometimes delaying for years before disposing of the barrels. In many cases, these barrels rusted and deteriorated to such an extent that chemical waste would seep through onto the ground. J.A. at 332-33.
In 1971, while still working for Hoechst, Groce opened Groce Laboratories (Groce Labs), a hazardous chemical reclamation facility, on a two-acre tract directly across the street from Hoechst-Celanese. Groce Labs accepted chemical waste from numerous area industries and distilled it into usable products. Hoechst-Celanese employees were fully aware of the Groce Labs operation and of the fact that barrels of waste occasionally would lie unattended on the ground for varying lengths of time before they were processed. Uncontroverted evidence showed that over a dozen shipments of waste, comprising hundreds of barrels, were sent to Groce Labs from Hoechst-Fiber Industries and Hoechst-Hystron, and that these shipments contained significant amounts of carbon tetrachloride, methylene chloride, trichloroethylene, and other highly toxic chemicals. See, e.g., id. at 346, 1315-17. Groce testified that, as a general matter,"the barrels that we got were not always in good shape," so that some of them "might fall apart" when moved. Id. at 335.
After Groce left Hoechst's employ in 1974, Hoechst-Celanese officials decided to dispose of approximately 350 drums of hazardous waste. An inventory conducted in June, 1975, revealed that over 100 of the barrels were in need of repair, with twenty-three being completely rotten or otherwise heavily damaged. Id . at 1324-25. There was no evidence that the drums were repaired prior to disposal. 2 Groce Labs bid for disposal of the 350 Hoechst-Celanese drums and their contents.
Although a letter written by a Hoechst-Celanese manager on July 8, 1975, stated that Groce Labs would be awarded the contract, trial testimony reflects that another company's bid prevailed. Id. at 1323, 360. That company sub-contracted the bulk of the drums to Groce Labs, however, and Groce himself crossed the street to Hoechst- Celanese, removed the drums, and brought them to Groce Labs to await processing. Although a Hoechst employee testified to the contrary, there is evidence that Hoechst-Celanese officials may have known of and approved the delivery of the plant's waste directly to Groce Labs.
The parties dispute the condition of the drums taken from Hoechst-Celanese, and the length of time that they laid on the ground at Groce Labs before their contents were distilled. Groce's testimony suggested that some of the drums he removed from Hoechst-Celanese were the same ones that he had observed rusting, leaking, and rotting during the years that he had worked at the plant, and that these barrels then remained unprocessed at the Groce Labs site for nearly two years. 3
Groce sold his property to Hoechst in 1977. Hoechst paved the entire area and has since used the property exclusively as a parking lot. In May, 1989, appellees Shockley, Young, and Alford, a group of real estate developers, purchased a seventy-three acre parcel of land adjoining this parking lot, intending to create a residential subdivision. Nine days after title passed to the developers, Hoechst informed them that the groundwater beneath the parking lot was contaminated. Testing revealed, and the parties no longer dispute, that the developers' groundwater is also thoroughly contaminated by hazardous chemicals which were dumped or spilled onto the ground at the Groce Labs site during reclamation operations during the 1970s and which eventually made their way into the groundwater beneath the downgradient tract now owned by the developers. The contaminating chemicals include the types shipped to Groce Labs from the three Hoechst plants. Id. at 1181. The contamination is ongoing and will continue indefinitely.
The developers brought this action in the district court against Hoechst, Groce, and two of Groce's other former customers, Union Carbide and Owens-Corning, seeking relief under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601-9675, and monetary damages under pendent South Carolina claims for trespass, nuisance, negligence, strict liability and, against all defendants except Groce, negligent...
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