Chemical Weapons Working Group, Inc. v. United States Department of Defense

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
MAR 18 2003
TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
CHEMICAL WEAPONS WORKING
GROUP, INC.; SIERRA CLUB;
VIETNAM VETERANS OF
AMERICA FOUNDATION,
Plaintiffs - Appellants,
No. 00-4110
v. (D.C. No. 2:96-CV-425-C)
(D. Utah)
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT
OF DEFENSE; UNITED STATES
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY;
EG&G DEFENSE MATERIALS,
INC.,
Defendants - Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before HENRY , McWILLIAMS , and LUCERO , Circuit Judges.
The appellants are three non-profit public interest groups. The appellees
are two federal agencies and a corporation retained by the Department of Defense
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court
generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order
and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
to operate a chemical agent disposal facility. The appellants brought suit under
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), 42 U.S.C. § 6972, and
other environmental statutes in federal district court, seeking legal and equitable
relief based on alleged violations at the facility. After a bench trial, the district
court dismissed the action. We exercise jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and,
for the reasons described below, affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
The appellees jointly operate the Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility
(TOCDF) in Tooele, Utah. TOCDF destroys dangerous chemical agents, using a
variety of monitoring and alarm systems to prevent those agents from migrating to
unsafe areas within the facility and from escaping into the atmosphere in
dangerous concentrations. In denying preliminary injunctive relief, we described
in some detail the technical and historical facts relevant to this case. See
Chemical Weapons Working Group, Inc. v. United States Department of the Army,
111 F.3d 1485 (10th Cir. 1997), aff’g 935 F. Supp. 1206 (D. Utah 1996); see also
Sierra Club v. Utah Solid and Hazardous Waste Control Bd., 964 P.2d 335 (Utah
Ct. App. 1998). We therefore need not repeat those facts here.
In their initial complaint and three amended complaints, the appellants
alleged that the operations at TOCDF violated various environmental statutes.
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The appellants alleged that violations occurred from 1996 to 1999 and asserted
generally that environmental harm would continue in the future. After a bench
trial that included extensive expert testimony (most of which was offered by the
appellees), the district court issued a judgment that included fifteen pages of
findings of fact along with conclusions of law. The district court concluded that
“the evidence at trial established that no agent-related injuries have been
sustained and no agent has been released into the environment outside TOCDF.”
Aplts’ App. at A-378 (Dist. Ct. Order, filed Apr. 14, 2000). The appellants assert
that the district court erred in: (A) dismissing claims under 42 U.S.C. §
6972(a)(1)(A) as “wholly past,” (B) dismissing claims under 42 U.S.C. §
6972(a)(1)(B) as not posing an imminent or significant danger, (C) making
inadequate findings under Fed. R. Civ. P. 52, (D) failing to consider certain
“admissions” by appellees, and (E) failing to draw adverse inferences from the
appellees’ failure to submit certain evidence during trial. 1
1
We note with disappointment that–of the five issues asserted on
appeal–the appellants’ brief provided a standard of review only for the fourth of
those issues. See Fed R. App. P. 28(a)(9)(B).
We also feel compelled to point out that the appellants cited at least one
unpublished opinion in their brief. See Aplts’ Br. at 43 (citing Jordan F. Miller
Corp. v. Mid-Continent Aircraft Service Inc., 1998 WL 68879 (10th Cir. Feb. 20,
1998)). As our rules specify, citation to unpublished cases is disfavored. See
10th Cir. R. 36.3(B) (specifying two circumstances under which unpublished
opinions may be cited, neither of which apply here). Having chosen to violate
that rule, the appellants then failed to attach a copy of the unpublished opinion to
(continued...)
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II. ANALYSIS
On appeal from a bench trial, we review de novo the district court’s
conclusions of law. Dang v. UNUM Life Ins. Co. of Am., 175 F.3d 1186, 1189
(10th Cir. 1999). But unsurprisingly, “[f]indings of fact, whether based on oral or
documentary evidence, shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and due
regard shall be given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge of the
credibility of the witnesses.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a). “[R]eview under the ‘clearly
erroneous’ standard is significantly deferential.” Concrete Pipe & Prods. of Cal.
v. Constr. Laborers Pension Trust, 508 U.S. 602, 623 (1993).
A. “Wholly Past” Violations
The appellants assert that the district court erroneously dismissed four of
their claims for failing to meet the standards set forth in RCRA, which authorizes
citizen suits against “any person (including (a) the United States, and (b) any
other governmental instrumentality or agency . . .) who is alleged to be in
violation of any permit, standard, regulation, condition, requirement, prohibition,
1
(...continued)
the document in which it was cited, in violation of 10th Cir. R. 36.3(C).
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or order which has become effective pursuant to this chapter.” 42 U.S.C. §
6972(a)(1)(A).
The wording of this and other environmental statutes–specifically, the
phrase “is alleged to be in violation”–creates some uncertainty as to whether the
violation must be ongoing at the time of the allegation. In Gwaltney of
Smithfield, Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc., 484 U.S. 49 (1987), the
Supreme Court addressed this issue in the context of the Clean Water Act, 33
U.S.C. § 1365(a). 484 U.S. at 56. There, the Supreme Court interpreted “alleged
to be in violation” to require that appellants allege a state of “continuous or
intermittent violation.” Id. at 57. “Wholly past violations” are not covered by the
phrase, and citizen suits for wholly past violations are therefore not authorized by
the statute. Id. at 64. The Court noted that identical language was used in RCRA.
Id. at 57.
The district court observed that the Tenth Circuit has not yet addressed the
question of whether the “wholly past” doctrine applies to RCRA; but it pointed
out that every other circuit to have addressed the issue (and every district court in
the circuits that have not addressed the issue) has held that Gwaltney applies to
RCRA. Aplts’ App. at A-394 to A-395; id. at A-395 n.13. The appellants here,
in fact, do not dispute Gwaltney’s applicability to their RCRA claims. We
therefore need not address that issue, and we assume that the legal standard
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employed by the district court now constitutes the law of the case. See, e.g.,
Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Ogden v. Coca-Cola Co., 4 F.3d 930, 933 n.3 (10th
Cir. 1993).
The appellants argue instead that the claims rejected by the district court
were not wholly past violations. They claim that the violations could not have
been wholly past because none of them had yet occurred as of the filing date of an
earlier version of their complaint. See Aplts’ Br. at 31-35. That is, in their
second amended complaint, the appellant’s alleged in general terms that
violations were likely to occur in the future. The appellants then waited until–as
is all but inevitable in an imperfect world, and under the overlapping safety
systems in place at TOCDF–an alarm went off, at which point they filed their
third amended complaint. They now attempt to insulate themselves from
Gwaltney by noting that their second amended complaint was filed on a date
before the violation, and they justify their lack of specificity therein by noting
that they are not “psychic” and thus could not predict the exact date of the
violation. Id. at 31.
The appellants misconstrue Gwaltney, where the Court understood that a
plaintiff’s case might be frustrated by a “suddenly repentant defendant,” 484 U.S.
at 67 n.6, one who predictably begins to comply with the law only after the onset
of the litigation. Here, by contrast, the appellants argue that their predictions of
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future violations in one iteration of their complaint were borne out years later and
were then included in a later iteration of their complaint. This, the appellants
seem to suggest, prevents the specific violation from ever being deemed “wholly
past,” because it was not “past” when they predicted it in their earlier complaint.
This is an inventive argument, but it is ultimately unpersuasive. The
district court was simply correct in determining that the alleged violations are
neither continuous nor intermittent violations. All of the appellants’ specific
claims involved discrete past incidents of alleged misconduct–incidents that were,
we note, followed not only by efforts to assess whether any damage was done, but
also by improvements in the facility’s procedures to prevent even those
(thankfully) harmless violations from occurring again. These violations,
therefore, are “wholly past” in the sense that the Gwaltney court used the term:
violations that have ceased, not because of the onset of litigation but because the
defendants had already corrected what they were doing. 2
2
The appellants also reassert a separate claim that the appellees
violated relevant permit requirements by not including the private contractor
EG&G on the original permit. Appellants are correct that Gwaltney does not
apply to this claim, because the violation was ongoing when the original
complaint was filed (and the original complaint specifically alleged this
violation). In a separate proceeding, the district court dismissed this claim on the
grounds of collateral estoppel. Chemical Weapons Working Group, Inc. v. U.S.
Dept. of the Army, 990 F. Supp. 1316, 1320 (D. Utah 1997). Subsequently, the
Utah Court of Appeals held that–although the Utah Solid and Hazardous Waste
Control Board erred in concluding that EG&G did not need a permit–the Board
(continued...)
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B. Imminent or Significant Danger
The Act also authorizes citizen suits “against any person, including the
United States . . . who has contributed . . . to the past or present handling, storage,
treatment, transportation, or disposal of any solid or hazardous waste which may
present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.”
42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B). The appellants assert that the district court erred in
requiring them to prove that the appellees’ actions “present an imminent and
substantial endangerment to health or the environment” because this phrase
in RCRA is prefaced by the word “may.” According to the appellants, the word
“may” in this sentence allows for allegations of potential or future harm, such that
a showing of actual harm is not required. See Aplts’ Br. at 19-21; Dague v. City
of Burlington, 935 F.2d 1343, 1355 (2d Cir. 1991) (stating that “may” is
“expansive language”).
That the district court omitted the word “may” in its order does not,
however, demonstrate that it applied a test requiring actual current harm, as the
2
(...continued)
was not unreasonable in declining to punish EG&G for the violation. See Sierra
Club, 964 P.2d at 346. Therefore, the appellants are estopped from relitigating
the issue in search of a different remedy. See Harline v. Barker, 912 P.2d 433,
442 (Utah 1996) (“Issue preclusion prevents the relitigation of issues that have
once been adjudicated even though the claims for relief in the separate actions
may be different.”)
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appellants claim. Rather, the district court’s language suggests that it was
thinking not only about harm that had occurred, but about the possibility that
harm would occur in the future. In its discussion of the § 6972(a)(1)(B) claims,
for example, the district court discussed safety measures implemented “to prevent
similar incidents from occurring.” Aplts’ App. at A-396.
Moreover, although such a reading of the statute implies future orientation,
that orientation cannot be very far into the future. “Imminent” harm by definition
will occur almost immediately if action is not taken to prevent it. See Meghrig v.
KFC Western, Inc., 516 U.S. 479, 485 (1996). A vague possibility of future harm
cannot satisfy the statute, which applies to dangers that are both “imminent and
substantial.” 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B). For example, the appellants assert in
their third amended complaint that “it is expected that such incidents will
continue to occur,” Aplts’ App. at A-361, an open-ended allegation that simply
does not satisfy the standards in RCRA. Finally, although the appellants cite
caselaw from other circuits, they do not cite the more recent Meghrig decision,
where the Supreme Court held that “[a]n endangerment can only be imminent if it
threaten[s] to occur immediately[, which] implies that there must be a threat
which is present now, although the impact of the threat may not be felt until
later.” Id. at 485-86 (quotations omitted).
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The appellants’ argument, if adopted, would threaten to convert RCRA into
a strict liability statute. However, Congress expressly limited citizen suits to
cases of “imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.”
42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B). We agree with the district court that the appellants
did not show imminent danger and that their claims therefore lacked merit.
C. Adequacy of Findings
The appellants assert that the district court failed to rule on and/or did not
make adequate findings with respect to various claims, in violation of Fed. R.
Civ. P. 52(a). That rule does not, however, require “elaborate and detailed
findings and conclusions.” Woods Constr. Co. v. Pool Constr. Co., 314 F.2d 405,
406 (10th Cir. 1963). In a case as complex as this one, made more difficult by the
length of the various complaints, the district court should not be required to
respond to every specific factual allegation made by the appellants. 3 Some issues
are sufficiently disposed of in general terms. See, e.g., Anthony v. Texaco, Inc.,
803 F.2d 593, 600 (10th Cir. 1986) (approving lack of specific findings were “the
3
We do not, of course, intend to condemn the appropriate use of the
procedure to amend complaints. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a) (leave to amend “shall
be freely given when justice so requires”). Nor do we suggest that lengthy
complaints are never necessary. We do, however, find the various iterations of
the appellants’ complaint here to be needlessly confusing and
overlapping–especially given the appellants’ attempt to rely on different versions
of their complaint to support their legal argument.
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record on appeal supports the court’s order and indicates the court heard evidence
on each element”). We hold that the findings and conclusions of the district court
were “sufficiently detailed and exact to permit an intelligent review.” Med. Dev.
Co. v. Ind. Molding Corp., 479 F.2d 345, 349 (10th Cir. 1973).
D. Failure to Consider Appellees’ “Admissions”
The appellants further claim that the district court failed to consider certain
“admissions” by the appellees. We note initially that some of the supposed
“admissions” involve possible harm to workers at the facility. The appellants
lack standing to make these claims because no TOCDF worker is a named
plaintiff and appellants have demonstrated no direct injury to themselves. See
Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. (TOC), 528 U.S. 167, 181–82
(2000). Other “admissions” involve instances when trace amounts of agent
migrated into different areas of TOCDF, the implications of which are certainly
open to plausible alternative interpretations. The appellants point to nothing in
the record that would indicate that the district court’s interpretation of these
“admissions” was implausible–especially given that the migrations were within
the plant and thus do not unequivocally evidence a danger to the public.
Accordingly, the district court did not clearly err in concluding that these
“admissions” did not involve substantial harm to health or the environment.
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E. Failure to Draw Adverse Inferences
Finally, the appellants argue that the district court erred in not drawing an
adverse inference from the appellees’ failure to offer into evidence at trial the
results of laboratory tests of certain air monitoring devices in the facility. The
appellants assert that the report was listed as an exhibit in the pre-trial order but
was “not offered at trial after Plaintiffs’ counsel . . . elicited admissions from
Defendants’ employees that . . . the chain of custody was intentionally not
maintained when it could have been.” Aplts’ Br. at 42. The appellants argue that
the district court “should have drawn an adverse inference to the effect that . . .
the results would have confirmed that a [violation occurred].” Id. at 43.
The appellants’ cited authority on this point is inapposite. They first cite
Ready Mixed Concrete v. National Labor Relations Board, 81 F.3d 1546 (10th
Cir. 1996), where we simply approved of the NLRB’s use of the adverse inference
rule and noted in passing that the rule had also been applied in other civil
contexts. Id. at 1552. Moreover, in that opinion we cited with approval a case
from a sister circuit for the proposition that the “decision whether to draw the
adverse inference lies with the factfinder.” Ready Mixed Concrete, 81 F.3d at1552 (citing United Auto Workers Int’l Union v. National Labor Relations Board,
459 F.2d 1329, 1339 (D.C. Cir. 1972)). The factfinder here was, of course, the
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court itself, which makes the appellants’ citation to another of our cases still more
confusing. In Gilbert v. Cosco, Inc., 989 F.2d 399 (10th Cir. 1993), we reviewed
a trial court’s decision not to instruct a jury on the adverse inference rule. We
noted that the adverse inference rule merely permits a jury to draw adverse
inferences, id. at 405, and we approved the judge’s decision not to accept the
plaintiffs’ proposed jury instruction on adverse inferences. Id. at 406. Most
importantly, we stated that the adverse inference rule should only be invoked
when, among other requirements, “the evidence is available to the suppressing
party, but not to the party seeking production [and] it appears that there has been
actual suppression or withholding of evidence.” Id. 4
We thus find no error in the district court’s determination that the
appellees’ failure to present certain evidence did not mandate a verdict for the
appellants. The appellants possessed and could have offered into evidence the
appellee’s documentation of that analysis. Their decision not to do so cannot
constitute error on the part of the district court.
4
Even the unpublished case to which the appellants refer, Jordan F.
Miller Corp. v. Mid-Continent Aircraft Service Inc., 1998 WL 68879 (10th Cir.
Feb. 20, 1998), notes that “an adverse inference instruction would not have been
appropriate [where] there was no evidence of bad faith.” Id. at **7.
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***
We are cognizant of the serious nature of the appellants’ allegations in this
case. It is understandable that people living near TOCDF would be worried about
the possibility of poisonous gases escaping into their immediate environment.
Therefore, it is entirely appropriate to scrutinize carefully the activities at TOCDF
and similar facilities , and to deal with violations properly. The issues that the
appellants raise on this appeal, and the laws and precedents under which we must
evaluate those issues, however, clearly require us to affirm the district court’s
ruling. 5
III. CONCLUSION
For the reasons discussed above, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment
for the appellees and its dismissal of the cause of action.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Robert Henry
Circuit Judge
5
We note also that a complaint relying on a more appropriate
environmental statute might have better served the appellants’ apparent purposes.
“Unlike the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and
Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), RCRA is not principally designed to effectuate
the cleanup of toxic waste sites or to compensate those who have attended to the
remediation of environmental hazards.” Meghrig, 516 U.S. at 483 (citation
omitted).
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