Ashland Chemical Co. v. Pollution Control Bd.

• Decision Date: 09 March 1978
• Docket Number: No. 77-62,77-62
• Parties: , 15 Ill.Dec. 480 ASHLAND CHEMICAL COMPANY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD and Environmental Protection Agency, Respondents- Appellees.
• Court: United States Appellate Court of Illinois

Page 826

373 N.E.2d 826

57 Ill.App.3d 1052, 15 Ill.Dec. 480

ASHLAND CHEMICAL COMPANY, Petitioner-Appellant, v. POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD and Environmental Protection Agency Respondents- Appellees.

No. 77-62.

Appellate Court of Illinois, Third District.

March 9, 1978.

James W. Gladden, Jr., Chicago (Mayer, Brown & Platt, Chicago, of counsel), for petitioner-appellant.

Russell R. Eggert, Asst. Atty. Gen., William J. Scott, Atty. Gen., Environmental Control Division, Chicago, for respondents-appellees.

STENGEL, Presiding Justice.

This appeal is from the Pollution Control Board's denial of an operating permit to Ashland Chemical Company for the boilerhouse at its Mapleton, Illinois, plant.

The Ashland plant at Mapleton near Peoria, Illinois produces chemicals from beef tallow and other material and uses three boilers, two of which are coal-fired. The Environmental Protection Agency denied Ashland's original application for an operating permit on June 10, 1975, because Ashland failed to meet the air pollution standards of the Pollution Control Board as set out in rules 203(g)(1)(B) and 204(c)(1)(A); (Ill. P.C.B. Rules & Reg. ch. 2, rules 203, 204). Rule 203(g) established particulate emission standards and rule 204(c) fixed sulfur dioxide emission limitations for solid fuel combustion emission sources. After the permit application was denied, Ashland filed a petition for a variance which was granted on September 29, 1975. At the Board's request, Ashland submitted extensive air quality data in support of its variance petition. The Board opinion granting the variance expressly found that Ashland had established that its boilers do not cause or contribute to violations of ambient air quality standards in the Peoria-Pekin area, thereby meeting its burden under Train v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (1975), 421 U.S. 60, 95 S.Ct. 1470, 43 L.Ed.2d 731, as then interpreted. ¹ Ashland's variance was conditioned upon the installation of baghouse fabric filters, the conversion to a low sulfur coal by June 1, 1976, and the performance of stack tests to ascertain whether Ashland had achieved compliance with the rules. The expiration date of the variance was June 1, 1976.

On March 25, 1976, the Illinois Supreme Court held invalid rules 204(c)(1)(A) and 203(g)(1)(B), and remanded those rules to the Board for further consideration. (Commonwealth Edison Co. v. Pollution Control Board (1976), 62 Ill.2d 494, 343 N.E.2d 459.) The Board subsequently ruled that variances from the invalid rules were no longer necessary. After the Commonwealth Edison decision, Ashland informed the Environmental Protection Agency that it would continue installation of the filters but would postpone the purchase of low sulfur coal. Then on April 23, 1976, Ashland filed a new application for an operating permit, submitting in lieu of technical data, the Board's opinion granting the variance in which the Board said:

"(Petitioner) shows that (air pollution) violations existing in the Peoria-Pekin area approximately 18 miles from the Ashland plant, are not caused or contributed to by that plant." (Petitioner's Ex. No. 7.)

The Agency denied the permit because of Ashland's failure to show compliance with ambient air quality standards as required by rule 102 (Ill. P.C.B. Rules & Reg. ch. 2, rule 102). ² Ashland appealed to the Board which affirmed the denial with an opinion stating that Ashland failed to meet its burden of proof of compliance with ambient air quality standards when it merely filed the Board's variance opinion without submitting any of the background data upon which the Board's findings were based. Ashland has brought this administrative review action seeking a reversal of the Agency and Board orders.

Ashland asserts that under the doctrine of res judicata, the Board's finding in the variance proceeding was conclusive here on the question of compliance with ambient air quality standards. In other words, having once made a factual determination that Ashland does not cause or contribute to violations of ambient air quality standards, the Board is bound by that finding in future proceedings. Illinois courts have frequently refused to apply the doctrine of res judicata to administrative proceedings and in so doing have not distinguished the two separate aspects of the doctrine: estoppel by judgment and estoppel by verdict. (E. g. Daley v. License Appeal Com. (1st Dist. 1965), 55 Ill.App.2d 474, 205 N.E.2d 269.) Generally the doctrine of estoppel by judgment is a bar to the relitigation of the same cause of action while estoppel by verdict precludes relitigation of the same facts in a subsequent case involving a different cause of action. People ex rel. Chicago & Eastern Ill. R. R. Co. v. Fleming (1969), 42 Ill.2d 231, 246 N.E.2d 275; 46 Am.Jur.2d, Judgments § 397 (1969).

In Mississippi River Fuel Corp. v. Illinois Commerce Com. (1953), 1 Ill.2d 509, 513, 116 N.E.2d 394, 396-7, our supreme court stated:

"The concept of public regulation includes of necessity the philosophy that the commission shall have power to deal freely with each situation as it comes before it, regardless of how it may have dealt with a similar or even the same situation in a previous proceeding.

"Whatever may be the moral obligation of the commission to adhere to the purpose and spirit of its own previous orders, it cannot be said that it is under a legal duty to do so." Accord, Citizens Savings & Loan Ass'n v. Knight (4th Dist. 1966), 74 Ill.App.2d 234, 219 N.E.2d 355.

Other jurisdictions are divided as to the application of the doctrine of res judicata to administrative decisions. (See 73 C.J.S. Public Administrative Bodies and Procedure § 147 (1951).) Federal courts have frequently recognized that an administrative agency performing a judicial function may be estopped to relitigate a factual issue previously determined but administrative res judicata is applied with more flexibility than the judicial concept. (Leviner v. Richardson (4th Cir. 1971), 443 F.2d 1338, 14 A.L.R.Fed. 768; 2 Am.Jur.2d Administrative Law § 502 (1962).) The decisions in Illinois have not been unanimous. An award by the Illinois Industrial Commission was held to be res judicata in Trigg v. Industrial Commission (1936), 364 Ill. 581, 5 N.E.2d 394, 108 A.L.R. 153, and in Chicago & West Towns Rys., Inc. v. Illinois Commerce Com. (1947), 397 Ill. 460, 463, 74 N.E.2d 804, 806, the court said:

"It is, of course, elementary that all of the facts passed upon and adjudicated upon the prior (Commerce Commission) hearing of this case cannot be relitigated * * *."

The Board argues that res judicata does not apply here because this permit proceeding is actually a different cause of action than the earlier variance proceeding. While this difference would prevent estoppel by judgment from being a bar, estoppel by verdict does not require an identity of cause of action, but rather an identity of factual issue. The factual issue in this case is whether Ashland's operations cause or contribute to violations of ambient air quality...