In Curtis v. 7-Eleven, No. 21-cv-6079, 2022 WL 4182384, at * 1 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 13, 2022), the Honorable Steven C. Seeger of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois delivered an eminently readable and entertaining decision, granting in part and dismissing in part 7-Eleven’s motion to dismiss a number of “greenwashing” claims brought against it by putative class representative, Devon Curtis.  Greenwashing is defined as “the act or practice of making a product, policy, activity, etc. appear to be more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than it really is.” In her complaint, Curtis alleges that she purchased foam plates, foam cups, party cups, and freezer bags from 7-Eleven.  Even though these products were labeled “recyclable”, Curtis alleges that they never really were, either because very few recycling facilities accept these products or because some of the products lacked markings, known as RIC numbers, which recycling facilities use to sort products by plastic type.   Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Class Actions, Greenwashing, Illinois, Injunction, Landfill, Standing, Waste

On September 20, 2019, hitting a trifecta of commonly-litigated CERCLA issues, Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel, Chief Justice of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, partially denied and partially granted Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss in The Premcor Refining Group Inc., v. Apex Oil Company, Inc., et. al., No. 17-cv-738-NJR-MAB (S.D. Ill.). The Court held (a) Premcor had adequately pled fact to withstand a defense that the petroleum exclusion barred the claims; (b) Premcor could not simultaneously plead 107 and 113 claims, dismissing its cost recovery claims inasmuch as Premcor had settled its claims with the State of Illinois; and (c) the contribution protection Apex Oil obtained in its settlement with the State of Illinois included CERCLA claims barred Premcor’s claims. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: CERCLA, Cleanup, Consent Decree, Contamination, Contribution, Cost Recovery, Illinois, Remediation, Superfund

On April 9, 2019, Judge John Z. Lee of the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division denied the City of Evanston’s motion for a preliminary injunction against two utility companies in a RCRA action that sought to compel the utility companies to investigate and remediate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) contamination in the area.  After a lengthy evidentiary hearing spanning eight days, Judge Lee found that the city had failed to meet its overall burden of proving likelihood of success on the merits, in part because he believed one of the city’s main theories of contamination to be “simplistic.”  (Memorandum Opinion and Order, at *4, City of Evanston v. Northern Illinois Gas Company, No. 16 C 5692 at *19 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 9, 2019)). And on May 16, 2019, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a similar decision in Varlen Corporation v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, No. 17-3212 (7^th Cir. May 16, 2019), excluding an expert witness and granting summary judgment to the defendant because the expert's testimony regarding the cause of contamination was found to be unreliable, having failed to meet the Daubert standard. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Causation, Contamination, Duty to Defend, Expert Witness, Groundwater, Illinois, Insurance, Insurance Coverage, RCRA, Seventh Circuit, Water

Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed a district court’s ruling to decertify a class action filed by landowners for releases from Exxon’s 850-mile Pegasus Pipeline that crosses four states from Texas to Illinois.  The case, Webb, et al. v. Exxon Mobil Corp., et al., Dkt. No. 15-2879 (8th Cir., May 11, 2017), was filed by a group of landowners who claimed that Exxon materially breached the terms of their right-of-way easement agreements by allegedly failing to inspect, maintain, repair, and replace the pipeline, which was originally installed in the mid-1940s.  At various times since the 1980s, the pipeline had releases in Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, which the plaintiffs claim resulted in damage to their properties.  The plaintiffs sought to rescind their right-of-way easement agreements and force Exxon to remove or replace the entire pipeline, or in the alternative, to be paid damages for breach of contract and diminution in property value.  Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Arkansas, Certification, Class Actions, Cleanup, Contamination, Damages, Eighth Circuit, Energy, Federal Procedure, Illinois, Missouri, Oil and Gas, Pipelines, Property Value, Texas

A U.S. District Court recently considered two questions in response to a citizen suit under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”) requesting injunctive relief while an ongoing state-court proceeding over the remediation was already ongoing: (1) whether the Court could enter injunctive relief even though the state-proceeding was ongoing; and (2) whether the Court should enter injunctive relief in light of the state-proceeding.  In the case, LAJIM, LLC, et al. v. General Electric Co., No. 13 CV 50348 (N.D. Ill. October 4, 2016), the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois first held that RCRA “plainly authorizes” injunctive relief in citizen suits, even when a state proceeding is ongoing.  But the Court found that it needed additional facts to determine whether the injunctive relief was appropriate in the case before it, and established an action plan to make such a finding.     Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Citizen Suit, Cleanup, Contamination, Illinois, Private Right of Action, RCRA, Remediation

Last week, a federal court in the Central District of Illinois held the owner and operator of a coal-fired power plant liable for violations of the Clean Air Act for exceeding particulate matter emission thresholds in the plant’s state operating permit.  NRDC v. Ill. Power Res., LLC, No. 13-cv-1181, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 111976 (C.D. Ill. Aug. 23, 2016).  The court found that the plaintiffs—three environmental advocacy organizations who filed suit under the citizen suit provision of the CAA—had standing to sue the plant because certain of their individual members suffered injury-in-fact where emitted pollutants that “could cause harm” were present in the witnesses’ general geographic area and the witnesses’ pleasure was somehow diminished by the presence of the pollutants, even where the witnesses could not point to an objective effect of the alleged violation. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Citizen Suit, Clean Air Act, Emissions, Federal Procedure, Hazardous Air Pollutants, Illinois, Permits, Standing

Since the United States Supreme Court decided Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S.Ct. 2451 (2011), plaintiffs in contamination cases have struggled to meet the raised bar for class certification.  And that bar was certainly not lowered by the Seventh Circuit in its decision in Parko v. Shell Oil Co., Nos. 13-8023 & 13-8024 (7^th Cir. Jan 17, 2014).  Parko involved a putative class comprised of property owners in the town of Roxana, Illinois, who claimed that their property values had been diminished by benzene contamination of the groundwater from an adjacent oil refinery which had been in operation for nearly 100 years.  In checking off the certification requirements, the district court held that the question of whether the multiple defendants who owned and operated the refinery during the preceding 90 plus years failed to “contain petroleum byproduct [resulting] in contamination to Roxana property” predominated.   The Seventh Circuit panel unanimously disagreed.  Judge Posner, writing for the Court, described the opinion as necessary for clarification of a trial court’s responsibility to conduct a “rigorous analysis” of whether common issues predominate; in doing so, he did not hesitate to take the district judge to task for “treat[ing] predominance as a pleading requirement” rather than an evidentiary one.  Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Causation, Certification, Class Actions, Contamination, Dukes, Expert Witness, Illinois, Procedure, Real Estate, Residential, Seventh Circuit, Toxic Torts, Water

Plaintiffs continue to struggle in their attempts to obtain class certification in toxic tort cases, the most recent example being the May 14, 2012 decision in Earley v. Village of Crestwood, No. 09-CH-32969 (Cook County Ill).   In Earley, Plaintiffs brought suit ostensibly on behalf of the residents of Crestwood Village, contending that the municipality had been providing them with tap  water from a contaminated well for some twenty plus years.  In an opinion that does not even reach three pages in length, the trial court made quick work of their class action claims, focusing on proximate cause.  Relying on Smith v. Illinois Central RR, 223 Ill, 2d 441 (2006), which rejected class certification in mass toxic torts because of the complex and individual nature of establishing that the alleged contamination proximately caused each class members’ alleged injuries, the trial judge in Earley found that the necessity for each plaintiff “to establish the amount and type of their damages proximately caused by Defendants” would “overwhelm any common issues,” thus dooming certification.

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Cancer, Class Actions, Illinois, Toxic Torts, Water