Thomas v. FAG Bearings Corp.

• Decision Date: 10 February 1994
• Docket Number: No. 92-5070-CV-SW-8.,92-5070-CV-SW-8.
• Citation: Thomas v. FAG Bearings Corp., 846 F.Supp. 1382 (W.D. Mo. 1994)
• Parties: Elaine THOMAS et al., Plaintiffs, v. FAG BEARINGS CORPORATION, Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, v. CONTRACT FREIGHTERS, INC., et al., Third-Party Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri

846 F. Supp. 1382

Elaine THOMAS et al., Plaintiffs, v.FAG BEARINGS CORPORATION, Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff, v.CONTRACT FREIGHTERS, INC., et al., Third-Party Defendants.

No. 92-5070-CV-SW-8.

United States District Court, W.D. Missouri, W.D.

February 10, 1994.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

John M. Parisi, Bobbie R. Bailey, Lynn R. Johnson, Shamberg, Johnson, Bergman & Morris, Chartered, Overland Park, KS, Michael A. Gould, Raaji Deen Kanan, Gould & Duchardt, North Kansas City, MO, for plaintiffs.

David Field Oliver, Smith, Gill, Fisher & Butts, Kansas City, MO, Eric S. Aronson, John M. Scagnelli, Whitman & Ransom, Newark, NJ, for defendant and third-partyplaintiff.

William T. Session, The Session Law Firm, John M. Edgar, Bryan Cave, Kansas City, MO, David R. Erickson, Douglas P. McLeod, Blackwell, Sanders, Matheny, Weary & Lombardi, Overland Park, KS, James T. Price, Elaine Drodge Koch, Spencer, Fane, Britt & Browne, Randall E. Hendricks, Rouse, Hendricks, German, May & Shank, P.C., Kansas City, MO, Carol M. Wood, King & Spalding, Atlanta, GA, James W. Erwin, Gordon L. Ankney, Thompson & Mitchell, St. Louis, MO, James H. Arneson, Gary R. Cunningham, Daniel, Clampett, Lilley, Dalton, Powell & Cunningham, Springfield, MO, for third-party defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

STEVENS, Chief Judge.

This matter is before the Court on third-party defendants' motions for summary judgment.This suit began as a class-action complaint by the residents of Silver Creek and Saginaw Village against FAG Bearings Corporation for the contamination of their well water by the chemical TCE, which they allege was released into the groundwater by FAG Bearings.FAG Bearings, in turn, brought a third-party complaint against numerous other corporations which maintain facilities near Silver Creek and Saginaw Village.

Those third-party defendants now move for summary judgment on the grounds that FAG Bearings cannot prove that any one of them caused the contamination at Saginaw Village or Silver Creek.

SUMMARY JUDGMENT

Summary judgment is appropriate where "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law."Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c).

If a party is unable to make a sufficient showing to establish the existence of some essential element of its case upon which it will bear the ultimate burden of proof at trial, all other facts are necessarily immaterial.Celotex Corp. v. Catrett,477 U.S. 317, 321, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2552, 91 L.Ed.2d 265(1986).

A party seeking summary judgment bears the initial burden of demonstrating to the court that an essential element of the nonmoving party's case is lacking.Id.The burden then shifts to the nonmoving party to come forward with sufficient evidence to demonstrate that there is a factual controversy as to that element, or to explain why such evidence is not currently available.Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.,477 U.S. 242, 247, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202(1986);Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e).If the nonmoving party fails so to respond, summary judgment, if appropriate, shall be entered against that party.Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e).

The standard for determining whether a factual dispute is genuine is the same as the standard applied to motions for a directed verdict.Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.,477 U.S. at 249, 106 S.Ct. at 2511.

The "genuine issue" summary judgment standard is "very close" to the "reasonable jury" directed verdict standard: "The primary difference between the two motions is procedural; summary judgment motions are usually made before trial and decided on documentary evidence, while directed verdict motions are made at trial and decided on the evidence that has been admitted."Bill Johnson's Restaurants, Inc. v. N.L.R.B.,461 U.S. 731103 S.Ct. 216176 L.Ed.2d 277(1983).

Id.,477 U.S. at 251, 106 S.Ct. at 2512.The standard under both is whether the evidence is sufficiently at odds as to require a jury to decide, or whether the case is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law.Id.

If a party in a run-of-the-mill civil case moves for summary judgment or for a directed verdict based on the lack of proof of a material fact, the judge must ask himself not whether he thinks the evidence unmistakably favors one side or the other but whether a fair-minded jury could return a verdict for the non-moving party on the evidence presented.The mere existence of a scintilla of evidence in support of the non-moving party's position will be insufficient; there must be evidence on which the jury could reasonably find for the plaintiff.The judge's inquiry, therefore, unavoidably asks whether reasonable jurors could find by a preponderance of the evidence that the non-moving party is entitled to a verdict.

Id. at 252, 106 S.Ct. at 2512.Therefore, the standard on this motion is whether the defendant has come forward with evidence which would allow a reasonable jury to find in its favor.

The facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, who must be given the benefit of all reasonable inferences which may be made from the facts disclosed in the record.Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co.,398 U.S. 144, 156, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 1608, 26 L.Ed.2d 142(1970);Raschick v. Prudent Supply, Inc.,830 F.2d 1497, 1499(8th Cir.1987), cert. denied,485 U.S. 935, 108 S.Ct. 1111, 99 L.Ed.2d 272(1988).

In applying the Supreme Court's standard for summary judgment, this Court is guided by the following language from Celotex Corp. v. Catrett:

One of the principal purposes of the summary judgment rule is to isolate and dispose of factually unsupported claims or defenses, and we think it should be interpreted in a way that allows it to accomplish this purpose....

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure have for almost 50 years authorized motions for summary judgment upon proper showings of the lack of a genuine, triable issue of material fact.Summary judgment procedure is properly regarded not as a disfavored procedural shortcut, but rather as an integral part of the Federal Rules as a whole, which are designed to "secure the just, speedy and inexpensive determination of every action."Fed.R.Civ.P. 1....Rule 56 must be construed with due regard not only for the rights of persons asserting claims or defenses that are adequately based in fact to have those claims and defenses tried to a jury, but also for the rights of persons opposing those claims and defenses to demonstrate in the manner provided by the Rule, prior to trial, that the claims and defenses have no factual basis.

477 U.S. at 323-27, 106 S.Ct. at 2553-55.

DISCUSSION

FAG Bearings brought this third-party complaint against the third-party defendants under CERCLA, 42 U.S.C. § 9613 for indemnity or contribution towards satisfaction, if any, of liability assessed to FAG Bearings for contamination at the Silver Creek and Saginaw Village sites.¹FAG Bearings also sued the third-party defendants for the contamination of its own site under 42 U.S.C. § 9607.The elements to prove either claim are essentially the same.Proof of a CERCLA claim requires that:

1.There was a release or threatened release of a hazardous substance;

2.The site of the release or threatened release is a "facility" as that term is defined in the statute;

3.The release or threatened release has caused a party to incur response costs; and

4.The person from whom costs are sought falls into a statutorily-defined group of persons.

See42 U.S.C. § 9607.

Under Rule 56, the defendant must not disprove every element and every possible factual scenario.The defendant need only make a showing that plaintiff cannot prove an element of its case.Once that is done, the burden is on the plaintiff to present some evidence that there is a material issue of fact about the element in question.Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.,477 U.S. 242, 250, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2511, 91 L.Ed.2d 202(1986).In this case, the third-party defendants argue that FAG Bearings cannot prove numbers one or three of the stated essential elements of a CERCLA claim.The third-party defendants claim that FAG Bearings can present no evidence that there has been a "release" of TCE or any TCE-related substance at any of the third-party sites.They further argue that FAG Bearings has no evidence to support a contention that any release at their site "caused" the contamination at Silver Creek or Saginaw Village.

Both issues raised by third-party defendants relate directly to the concept of "causation" in CERCLA actions.Before addressing either argument, the Court must discern the role of causation under 42 U.S.C. § 9607.

The element of "causation" in CERCLA suits has rarely been addressed because the "release" of the hazardous waste is almost always at the same site that has been contaminated.Congress adopted strict liability in these situations.²It is not necessary to connect the actual waste disposed of at a site to the waste actually released.Instead, Courts have determined that the statute

appears to impose liability on a generator who has (1) disposed of its hazardous substances (2) at a facility which now contains hazardous substances of the sort disposed of by the generator (3) if there is a release of that or some other type of hazardous substance (4) which causes the incurrence of response costs.

United States v. Wade,577 F.Supp. 1326, 1333(E.D.Pa.1983);see alsoWilliam W. Rodgers, Jr., 4Environmental Law — Hazardous Wastes and Substances§ 8.11, at 661.There is no need to trace the wastes released to the wastes deposited, or to show that defendant's delivery of wastes to the site was the "but for" cause of the release, or that defendant's wastes were a substantial factor in the resulting contamination.SeeRodgers, § 8.11, at 611-612.The connection is presumed.One whose...