## Facts

- Chem-Dyne Corporation operated a hazardous-waste processing facility in Hamilton, Ohio, receiving wastes from numerous industrial sources.
- After operations ceased, substantial hazardous substances remained onsite, contaminating the facility and threatening surrounding groundwater.
- The EPA placed the site on the National Priorities List and performed response actions using CERCLA “Superfund” funds.
- The United States sued Chem-Dyne and 23 other corporate entities alleged to have generated or transported hazardous substances to the facility, seeking reimbursement of response costs under CERCLA § 107, 42 U.S.C. § 9607.
- A key complication was commingling of wastes from multiple sources and uncertainty about which wastes caused particular contamination.

## Issues

1. Whether CERCLA § 107 imposes strict liability on responsible parties for response costs.
2. Whether, and under what rule of decision, CERCLA permits joint and several liability for multiple generators/transporters where the harm is indivisible.
3. Whether the court should rule on the availability of joint and several liability at the partial summary judgment stage.

## Decision

- The court held that CERCLA § 107 imposes strict liability, relying on Congress’s incorporation of the liability standard in § 311 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act and the prevailing judicial interpretation of that provision as strict liability.
- The court held that CERCLA does not foreclose joint and several liability despite statutory silence and the removal of explicit joint-and-several language from earlier drafts.
- The court adopted a uniform federal common-law approach, guided by traditional tort principles, to determine whether liability should be joint and several or apportioned.
- Applying Restatement-based principles, the court held that joint and several liability may apply where the harm is indivisible; defendants bear the burden to show divisibility and a reasonable basis for apportionment.
- The court denied defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment because divisibility and apportionment are fact-dependent and could not be resolved in the abstract on the existing record.

## Legal Principles

- CERCLA § 107 establishes strict liability for covered persons (including certain owners/operators, generators, and transporters) for governmental response costs, subject to statutory defenses.
- The availability and scope of joint and several liability under CERCLA is governed by a uniform federal common-law rule rather than varying state law.
- Under federal common law informed by the Restatement (Second) of Torts, when multiple parties contribute to a single, indivisible harm, liability may be joint and several.
- Apportionment is permitted only if there is a reasonable basis to divide the harm; the burden to prove divisibility and a reasonable basis for apportionment rests on defendants.
- Whether harm is divisible and whether apportionment is feasible are fact-intensive questions generally unsuitable for resolution by early, categorical summary judgment.

## Conclusion

The court ruled that CERCLA § 107 imposes strict liability and that joint and several liability remains available under a federal common-law approach tied to tort divisibility principles; because divisibility and apportionment turned on unresolved facts at the contaminated site, defendants were not entitled to a pretrial ruling eliminating joint and several liability.


United States v. Chem-Dyne Corp., 572 F. Supp. 802 (S.D. Ohio 1983)