Parker v. Scrap Metal Processors, Inc., 468 F.3d 733 (11th Cir. 2006)
Josh Clemons
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit recently issued an opinion in a case that pitted a landowner against her neighbor, a scrap metal processing plant, who she accused of violating an array of state and federal environmental laws including the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Background
Quebell Parker and her family, the plaintiffs in this case, have lived for approximately fifty years in the same location in the town of Covington, Georgia. For much of that time the neighboring property has been the site of a junk and scrap metal yard, which is currently owned by J. Wayne Maddox.
In 2002 the Parker family filed suit against Maddox and the scrap yard’s previous owners, alleging various state tort and environmental law violations as well as violations of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). The Parkers won before the trial court and were awarded a million dollars in damages. In addition to the Parkers’ award, the defendants were ordered to pay civil fines, develop a stormwater plan, and obtain a solid waste handling permit from the state.
The defendants appealed that verdict, and were rewarded for that effort by having the damages reversed on account of the fact that the Parker children, who were among the plaintiffs, did not actually own or occupy the Parker property during the time the damages accrued. The appeals court sent the case back to the district court to re-try the damages issue. This time, the Parkers sought damages only for Mrs. Parker, who occupied the property at the relevant time.
The district court required the parties to brief it on whether it had subject-matter jurisdiction over the state law damage claim. After consideration of the issue the court decided not to exercise jurisdiction, leaving the damages issue to the state courts.
In addition, the Parkers asked the court to hold the defendants in contempt for failing to implement an adequate stormwater plan, as ordered in the first trial in 2003. The court denied this request on the grounds that the defendants had a “permit-by-rule” under RCRA, and that the plaintiffs had not provided sufficient evidence under the CWA that the defendants were not in compliance with the court’s order.
The Appeal
The Eleventh Circuit weighed three issues on appeal: (1) whether the district court erred in denying the Parkers’ request that it hold the defendants in contempt, (2) whether the district court erred in its holding on the stormwater plan, and (3) whether the district court erred in choosing not to exercise jurisdiction over the damages claim.
The first issue involved the defendants’ violation of RCRA, the federal statute governing transportation, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. In the original trial the district court ordered the defendants to obtain a RCRA permit for the handling of its scrap metal, which qualifies as a “solid waste” under Georgia’s implementation of the statute. The defendants were of the opinion that their stock-in-trade consisted of “recovered materials,” the handling of which is exempt from the permit requirement unless they are “accumulated speculatively.”1 They had obtained no permit despite the court’s finding that the materials were, in fact, accumulated speculatively, and that a permit was necessary.
The defendants argued in this appeal that they had a “permit-by-rule” under the Georgia regulations, and that the state had implicitly affirmed it in letters and an affidavit. The appeals court responded by reasoning that an affirmation by the state, even if valid, did not supersede a court’s mandate.
The next issue was the stormwater plan that the district court in 2003 ordered the defendants to develop and implement. The defendants argued that they could not afford to construct a stormwater detention pond, as required by the stormwater plan, but had been able to take interim measures to divert stormwater.
The court sympathized with the defendants on this issue, reasoning that the measures they had taken, while not necessarily sufficient in the long term, at least showed that they were making a good faith effort to comply. The Parkers had not shown evidence to the contrary. For this reason, the appeals court chose not to find the defendants in contempt of court.
The final issue was subject-matter jurisdiction. The district court had chosen not to exercise subject-matter jurisdiction over the state law damages claims, despite its ability to do so under the doctrine of supplemental jurisdiction.2 A district court has discretion to make this choice if at least one of the following situations applies: “(1) the claim raises a novel or complex issue of state law, (2) the claim substantially predominates over the claim or claims over which the district court has original jurisdiction, (3) the district court has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction, or (4) in exceptional circumstances, there are other compelling reasons for declining jurisdiction.”3
The appeals court analyzed each possible situation, and determined that none of them existed. The tort issues were not novel or complex; the state law claims did not predominate over the federal law claims; the federal claims had not been dismissed; and the “compelling reasons” that can convince a court to decline jurisdiction – judicial economy, convenience, fairness to the parties, and the expectation that all claims should be tried together – were not present. The appeals court therefore held that the district court abused its discretion by choosing not to exercise jurisdiction over the state law claims.
Conclusion
The Eleventh Circuit returned the case to the district court to decide the issues of damages and the solid waste handling permit. The appeals court affirmed the lower court’s decision about the stormwater plan.
.Endnotes
1. Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. R. 391-3-4-.01(55), .04(7)(b).
2. Supplemental jurisdiction enables a federal court to decide state law claims that arise from the same common nucleus of operative facts as the federal law claims over which it has original jurisdiction..
3. Parker v. Scrap Metal Processors, Inc., 468 F.3d 733, 743 (11th Cir. 2006).