Category Archives: Innocent Landowner Defense

The Need For Expert Evidence To Make Out An Innocent Landowner Defense Under CERCLA

As every litigator knows, evidence almost always tells a story that is untidy and riddled with loose ends.  This was illustrated by a recent innocent landowner case in California — Coppola v. Smith.  There, a company had purchased land in 1995 without knowledge that it had been contaminated with perchloroethylene (PCE) from a dry cleaning operation in the 1950s and 1960s.  When the company was sued under contribution by a nearby dry cleaner for contributing PCE to to regional groundwater contamination, … More