On May 12, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a pivotal decision addressing the timing of contribution claims under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA),...more
In State Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Wangs Alliance Corp., No. 21-cv-10389-AK, 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 26712, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (District Court) considered whether a product...more
In May 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in Territory of Guam v. United States, 593 U.S. __ (2021), on the issue of whether a settlement resolving environmental liabilities was sufficient to establish a right of contribution for...more
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that a party’s right to contribution claims under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA”) after entering into a settlement arises...more
In siding with the Territory of Guam in its dispute with the United States over costs to clean up the Ordot Landfill, the Supreme Court has resolved a circuit court split over which types of administrative settlements trigger...more
Does a consent decree under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) trigger a three-year limitation period to bring a contribution claim under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (“CERCLA”) when the...more
Last week, in its unanimous decision Guam v. United States, No. 20-382, the United States Supreme Court attempted to clarify a statutory question regarding the right to seek contribution that has been a source of uncertainty...more
In Territory of Guam v. United States, the Supreme Court unanimously held that claims for contribution under Section 113(f)(3)(B) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) require...more
This week, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of Guam v. United States, clarifying when contribution actions under CERCLA may be brought. In a unanimous decision overturning the D.C. Circuit, the Court held that a...more
Reversing the US Court of Appeals for DC Circuit, a unanimous US Supreme Court held that Guam’s settlement of Clean Water Act liabilities did not give rise to and trigger the statute of limitations to bring a Comprehensive...more
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that a settlement of Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (“CERCLA”)-specific liability is required to give rise to a contribution action...more
On May 24, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in the Territory of Guam v. United States case. At issue was whether Guam could maintain a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act...more
On May 24, 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Guam v. United States, holding that contribution under CERCLA does not arise until there is a CERCLA-specific liability, even if there is a settlement that resolves liability...more
On May 24, the Supreme Court weighed in on an issue that for decades has bedeviled litigants under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA): When can potentially responsible parties...more
McNellis-Wallace v. Hoffman, et. al., Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, Docket No. A-1488-19T1 - Brief Summary - A New Jersey appellate court held that a defendant in a malpractice case could not maintain a...more
In Rankin v. South Street Downtown Holdings, Inc., 2019 N.H. LEXIS 165, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire considered, pursuant to a question transferred by the trial court, whether RSA 508:4-b, the statute of repose for...more
Asarco, LLC v. Atlantic Richfield Company, 866 F.3d 1108 (9th Cir. 2017). In a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) contribution case, the Ninth Circuit addressed three issues of...more
In AGCS Marine Ins. Co. v. Geodis Calberson Hungaria Logisztikai KFT, No. 16-CV-9710 (S.D. N.Y. 2017), the Southern District of New York recently held that a contracting carrier’s claims for contribution and indemnification...more
In Asarco LLC v. Atlantic Richfield Company, No. 14-35723 (9th Cir. Aug. 10, 2017), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a published opinion interpreting the statute of limitations for contribution...more
Sometimes cases seem to be deciding issues that are so obvious it’s hard to figure out why they get any serious attention from the courts. One such case is ASARCO, LLC v. Celanese Chemical Company recently decided by the...more
Over a decade after the Supreme Court’s decision in Cooper Industries v. Aviall, the divide between CERCLA Section 107 cost recovery claims and Section 113 contribution claims remains unsettled. PRPs incurring response costs...more
On January 26, 2015, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Morristown Associates v. Grant Oil Co. that the general six-year statute of limitations for injury to real property does not apply to contribution claims...more
Action Item: Defendants can no longer assert a statute of limitations defense to claims of contribution under the New Jersey Spill Compensation and Control Act, N.J.S.A. 58:10-23.11, et seq. (“Spill Act”). ...more
Following principles of strict statutory construction and refusing to “unsettle a decades-long understanding in this State,” on January 26, 2015, the New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously ruled that there is no statute of...more
Parties which settle environmental liability in a judicially approved settlement have three years from the date of that settlement in which to seek contribution even if the settlement is not a CERCLA settlement. That is the...more