The Ninth Circuit decided that a manufacturer of a hazardous substance is jointly and severally liable under CERCLA for any spill or misuse of the product by a third party after the substance has left the custody and control of the manufacturer. However, the product in question was sold as a useful commercial product to a third party, and not as hazardous waste. The seller relinquished control at the point of delivery, and the material subsequently leaked and contaminated some soil. The Ninth Circuit’s ruling means that a seller of a useful product that may be hazardous has actually “arranged for the disposal” of the product within the meaning of CERCLA, and is thus liable for the cleanup costs.
The Supreme Court reversed, on May 4, 2009. The plain meaning of the statute requires that a company should have had an intent to arrange for the disposal of a hazardous material to be found liable as an "arranger." The NAM's amicus brief urging the Court to review the case had made this same argument, as opposed to the Ninth Circuit's much looser test that imposed liability if disposal was merely a foreseeable byproduct of the transaction.
The Shell case was consolidated with Burlington N. & Santa Fe R.R. Co. v. United States, which raised an issue relating to the apportionment of responsibility to various parties under CERCLA. The Ninth Circuit ruled that it is possible to divide liability among various parties that may have contributed to the contamination, but that there was insufficient evidence to do so here; thus, both the railroad and Shell were held to be jointly and severally liable. The Supreme Court reversed this ruling as well, saying that the trial court correctly found that liability could be apportioned, and that the railroad was liable for 9% of the cleanup costs. It ruled that apportionment is appropriate when the evidence is sufficient to provide a reasonable basis to do so.
The NAM argued that the heightened evidentiary standards established by the Ninth Circuit for demonstrating that there is a basis for apportioning harm are inconsistent with the standards set forth in the Restatement (Second) of Torts and with the approach adopted by other circuit courts, which have applied the Restatement approach in the CERCLA context. Additionally, we contended that apportionment in this case would be consistent with the policies underlying CERCLA, especially when one considers that concerns about the potentially harsh impacts of joint and several liability led Congress to delete any specific reference to joint and several liability in the statute.