## Facts

- The United States brought a civil action under CERCLA seeking injunctive relief and recovery of response costs for cleanup at a hazardous waste site in Taylor Borough, Pennsylvania.
- The site comprised approximately 125 acres and had been used in part for dumping and landfill operations, including a municipal landfill operated by the City of Scranton in 1967–1968.
- In 1969, Empire Contracting Company, a partnership wholly owned by Louis Serafini, Alfred Bernabei, Ernest Buttafoco, and Michael J. Naples, Jr. (the “Empire defendants”), acquired most of Parmoff Corporation’s interest in the site.
- By the time of the EPA’s enforcement action, the Empire defendants were current owners of a portion of the site.
- Beginning in 1981, the EPA and Pennsylvania environmental authorities investigated the property.
- In 1983, the EPA conducted an immediate removal action and found approximately 1,141 fifty-five-gallon drums scattered across and under multiple areas; many were open, crushed, partially buried, and deteriorated.
- Testing showed that samples from most drums contained hazardous substances.
- The parties entered a consent decree requiring remediation, while the government separately moved for partial summary judgment to establish the Empire defendants’ liability for response costs as CERCLA “owners.”
- The Empire defendants denied involvement in disposal and asserted the innocent-landowner defense, arguing they lacked knowledge (and reason to know) of contamination when they acquired the property.

## Issues

1. Whether the Empire defendants qualified as “owners” of a CERCLA “facility” under § 107(a)(1) and thus were potentially responsible parties.
2. Whether the Empire defendants could invoke the innocent-landowner defense by showing they did not know and had no reason to know of contamination at acquisition.
3. Whether an alleged failure to conduct an adequate pre-acquisition inspection, by itself, defeats the innocent-landowner defense at the summary-judgment stage.

## Decision

- The court found the Empire defendants were “owners” for CERCLA purposes based on their own records and ownership documents.
- The court denied the government’s motion for partial summary judgment on liability because genuine disputes of material fact existed regarding what the Empire defendants knew or reasonably should have known when they acquired the property and whether they made sufficient pre-acquisition inquiry.
- The court declined to treat an alleged failure to properly inspect the property before purchase as automatically barring the innocent-landowner defense.

## Legal Principles

- CERCLA § 107(a)(1) imposes potential liability for response costs on current owners of a facility.
- The innocent-landowner defense turns on whether, at acquisition, the purchaser did not know and had no reason to know of contamination, with “all appropriate inquiry” into prior ownership and uses relevant to that determination.
- Whether a purchaser had “reason to know” and whether its pre-acquisition inquiry was reasonable are commonly fact-dependent questions.
- Under Rule 56, summary judgment is improper where material facts bearing on the availability of a statutory defense remain genuinely disputed.
- An asserted deficiency in pre-acquisition inspection does not, as a categorical matter, eliminate the innocent-landowner defense; the effect of any deficiency depends on the circumstances and the evidentiary record.

## Conclusion

The court recognized the Empire defendants as CERCLA “owners” but denied partial summary judgment on § 107 liability because disputes over their pre-acquisition knowledge and inquiry created triable issues on the innocent-landowner defense, and an imperfect inspection was not treated as automatically disqualifying.


United States v. Serafini, 706 F. Supp. 346 (M.D. Pa. 1988)