Elkhart Foundry & Machine Co., Inc. v. City of Elkhart Redevelopment Commission for the City of ElkhartElkhart Foundry & Machine Co., Inc. v. City of Elkhart Redevelopment Commission for the City of Elkhart
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANT
Erik S. Mroz
David A. Temple
Scan T. Devenney
Drewry Simmons Vornehm, LLP
Carmel, Indiana
ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE
Brent W. Huber
Derek R. Molter
Kaitlyn J. Marschke
Ice Miller LLP
Indianapolis, Indiana
Case Summary
[1] This case concerns the efforts of the City of Elkhart and its Redevelopment Commission (the City) to rehabilitate a former industrial site situated along the Elkhart River in the city‘s downtown. The City has sued Elkhart Foundry & Machine Co. (the Foundry), which operated on the site until 2004. One of the statutes relied upon by the City is
[2] At issue in this appeal is the meaning of a related statute,
Facts and Procedural History
[3] The site at issue is located at 318 S. Elkhart Avenue in Elkhart. Beginning in the early 1900s, the Foundry operated an iron foundry on the site. The Foundry went out of business in 2004. In 2007, the Foundry voluntarily dissolved as an Indiana corporation, and a subsidiary of one of the Foundry‘s creditors took ownership of the site through a court-appointed receiver. The same year, the City began looking into purchasing the site and learned that it was contaminated. (The record reflects some uncertainty as to when various city agencies learned about the contamination, but for purposes of this appeal the parties proceed as though the City learned in 2007.) In 2010, the City purchased the site for $1,000,000 and began remediation work.
[4] In February 2016, the City filed suit against the Foundry. The City alleged that the Foundry caused the contamination and asserted: (1) an ELA under
[5] The Foundry now appeals the denial of its motion as to the ELA, and the City cross-appeals the grant of the motion on its other claims.
Discussion and Decision
[6] We review motions for summary judgment de novo. Hughley v. State, 15 N.E.3d 1000, 1003 (Ind. 2014).
I. ELA
[7] The Foundry contends that the trial court should have granted it summary judgment on the City‘s ELA. The filing of an ELA is allowed by
A person may, regardless of whether the person caused or contributed to the release of a hazardous substance or petroleum into the surface or subsurface soil or groundwater that poses a risk to human health and the environment, bring an environmental legal action against a
person that caused or contributed to the release to recover reasonable costs of a removal or remedial action involving the hazardous substances or petroleum.
Our Supreme Court has explained that the overall purpose of the legislation that authorized ELAs (Public Law 59-1997) was the rescue and redevelopment of brownfields—inactive or underused parcels of industrial or commercial real estate that are, or are perceived to be, contaminated. Cooper Indus., LLC v. City of South Bend, 899 N.E.2d 1274, 1281 (Ind. 2009). The Court added:
[T]he legislature enacted the ELA statute to shift the financial burden of environmental remediation to the parties responsible for creating contaminations. In effect, this scheme creates an incentive for potential buyers of contaminated land who might be deterred by the substantial costs to clean up the land, thus preventing not only the cleanup but also redevelopment and economic renewal.
[8] In seeking summary judgment on the City‘s ELA, the Foundry argued that such an action is subject to the six-year limitation period established by
[9] A bit of history is in order. Our Supreme Court addressed a claim that an ELA was time-barred in Cooper Industries, which was decided in 2009, before
[10] Two years after Cooper Industries, the legislature created
[11] In its appeal, the Foundry does not dispute that
[12] The problem with the Foundry‘s reliance on the footnote in Schuchman/Samberg Investments is that, as the panel in that case acknowledged,
[13] By stating that an ELA plaintiff can recover only costs incurred not more than ten (10) years before the date the action is brought,
[14] If the language of
[15] The Foundry argues that if
[16] As for the Foundry‘s contention that
[17] For these reasons, we conclude that the trial court correctly concluded that
II. Mini-CERCLA
[18] The City cross-appeals the trial court‘s grant of summary judgment to the Foundry on the City‘s mini-CERCLA claims. Congress enacted CERCLA,
[19] Indiana‘s mini-CERCLA, found at
[20] The City acknowledges that these two statutes, like the rest of Indiana‘s mini-CERCLA, contemplate action by IDEM, but it asserts that
Under this chapter:
(1) the attorney general;
(2) a state, city, town, county, or local agency or officer vested with the authority to seek judicial relief;
(3) a citizen of Indiana; or
(4) a corporation, a limited liability company, a partnership, or an association maintaining an office in Indiana;
may bring an action for declaratory and equitable relief in the name of the state of Indiana against an individual, a partnership, a copartnership, a firm, a company, a corporation, a limited liability company, an association, a joint stock company, a trust, an estate, a state agency or an officer of the state, a city, a town, a county, a local governmental unit, an agency, or an official of a city, a town, a county, a local governmental unit, or an agency, or any other legal entity or their legal representative, agent, or assigns for the protection of the environment of Indiana from significant pollution, impairment, or destruction.
[21] Regarding the claim under
[22] As for
[23] Before a public officer or agency can bring an action under the private-attorney-general statute, it must give notice in writing to the Department of Natural Resources, IDEM, and the Attorney General of Indiana,
III. Nuisance
[24] Finally, we address the City‘s nuisance claim. The legislature has defined
[25] The Foundry contends that it is entitled to summary judgment on this claim for three reasons. First, the Foundry argues that the claim is barred by the six-year limitation period applicable to [a]ctions for injuries to property other than personal property,
[26] We need not address the KB Home rationale or the Lilly Industries rationale. Even if those cases were wrongly decided (as the City contends) or are distinguishable from this case, we agree with the Foundry that the City‘s nuisance claim was untimely under
[27] The City does not dispute that its claim is subject to the six-year limitation period established by
[28] The City asserts that its argument is supported by our decision in Stickdorn v. Zook, 957 N.E.2d 1014 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011). We disagree. The defendants in Stickdorn operated a dairy from October 2003 until April 2005 (when they sold the dairy). In November 2009, six years and one month after operations began, the defendants’ neighbors filed a nuisance lawsuit against them, focusing on the defendants’ manure-management practices. The defendants argued that the claim was barred by the statute of limitation, but we held it was not. We began by describing a continuing nuisance as follows:
The distinction between an injury caused by a nuisance that is permanent or original, and one that is considered temporary, transient, continuing, or recurring, is critical to determining when the statute of limitations period for a nuisance action begins to run. An intermittent, non-abated nuisance is a new and separate injury that gives rise to a new cause of action. Successive actions may be maintained so long as the nuisance is permitted to continue, in which damages may be recovered for all
injury occasioned prior to the commencement of the action and within the statute of limitations, not extending back of a former recovery. When the nuisance is a continuing abatable one, an action that is prosecuted to a finality will not bar another action to recover for harm sustained in succeeding years, when it is made to appear that the nuisance has not been abated and its continuance has resulted in further injury.
Id. at 1022. In allowing the plaintiffs’ nuisance claim to proceed, we explained:
[T]he nuisance odors and contaminated streams from the [defendants‘] repeated manure spills, improper spreading of the waste on their fields, and the refusal to put a cover on their manure pit amount to an intermittent, abatable nuisance. Each time that the odors and polluted streams affected the [plaintiffs‘] property, the statute of limitations began anew. In short, we can glean from the designated evidence that the [plaintiffs‘] damages were recurring and continuing and thus, the manure pit became a temporary, continuing nuisance through its use, and not a permanent one from its mere existence.
Court of Appeals of Indiana | Opinion 20A03-1709-CT-2136 | October 3, 2018 Page 17 of 18 Id. at 1023. Put simply, because the complained-of activity by the defendants—repeated manure spills, improper spreading of the waste on their fields, and the refusal to put a cover on their manure pit—continued past October 2003 and into April 2005, the nuisance lawsuit filed in November 2009 was not barred by the six-year limitation period.
[29] Stickdorn does not support the City‘s continuing nuisance argument. Our holding in that case was not based on a finding that the odors and contamination caused by the defendants persisted after they stopped operating the dairy. In fact, there is no indication in the opinion that the defendants’ activity caused long-lasting odors and contamination. Instead, we based our holding on the fact that the activity itself was ongoing less than six years before the plaintiffs filed suit. Id. at 1022 (The [plaintiffs] assert that their injuries were the result of the [defendants‘] repeated, wrongful conduct through April 2005.). Here, on the other hand, it is undisputed that the activity that allegedly caused the contamination ceased more than six years before the City filed suit. Therefore, the mere persistence of contamination at the site does not amount to a continuing nuisance under Stickdorn, and the trial court did not err by granting summary judgment in favor of the Foundry on the City‘s nuisance claim.
[30] Affirmed.
Pyle, J., and Barnes, Sr. J., concur.
Vaidik, Chief Judge.