Philadelphia Electric co. v. Hercules – (Nuisance)
Philadelphia Electric Co. v. Hercules, Inc., 762 F.2d 303 (1985)
BY: James F. Polk – AISOL YEAR ONE STUDENT
Facts/Court/History:
- Pennsylvania Industrial Chemical Corporation (Industrial) ran a Hydrocarbon Resin Manufacturing Plant on it’s property on the Delaware River.
- Industrial would deposit and bury byproducts from it’s resin manufacturing activities on the property.
- Industrial sold the property to the Gould Company after Industrial finished it’s operations.
- Industrial then sold it’s remaining assets and liabilities to Hercules.
- Gould then sold the property to the Philadelphia Electric Co.
- Before purchasing the property, the Philadelphia Electric Co. performed a set of site inspections.
- Years later the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources discovered that hazardous resin chemicals were polluting the river as they leaked out of the ground from the property.
- Philadelphia Electric Co. had to spend several hundred thousand dollars to clean up the property.
- The cleanup only partly worked and the chemicals still seeped into the river.
- The Department required the Philadelphia Electric Co. to continue on with more cleanup.
- Electric sued Hercules because Hercules was Industrial’s “Corporate Successor”.
- The Suit was brought in Federal District Court.
- The Suit was over Public and Private Nuisance arguing that Industrial had created a Nuisance in/on the land.
- The Jury found for Electric and the District Court awarded Electric nearly a $400,000 judgment against Hercules.
- The District Court also issued an Injunction ordering Hercules to abate the contamination.
- Hercules appealed to the Third Circuit.
Issue: The Court considered the issue of whether a purchaser of land can bring a nuisance claim against a remote seller for conditions that exist on the land?
Conclusion: No, the purchaser of land has no cause of action for nuisance against a remote seller for conditions existing on the land when it is purchased unless the parties expressly agree otherwise. Court Reversed the Judgment and Vacated the Injunction.
Rule: Sellers have no liability to subsequent purchasers for nuisance.
Rule Proof: Judge Higginbotham Opining for the Court: Under the doctrine of Caveat Emptor a Seller of Land is NOT LIABLE to the Purchasers for the Land’s Condition when it is purchased. The purchaser is required to make an inspection of their own of the property before purchase and therefore the purchaser has the same opportunity as the seller to learn about any potential defects in the property. The rule limits the seller’s liability and duty to the buyer. There is only the protection of the parties based on the contract terms themselves.
A Private Nuisance is the invasion of another party’s interest in land. Land Owners have a duty to not interfere with the use and enjoyment of their neighbor’s land by their neighbor. Private Nuisance is a remedy for when neighboring landowners have a conflict based on incompatible uses of land.
A Public Nuisance is an unreasonable interference with a right shared by the general public at large. An Individual Plaintiff can only recover for that nuisance only if they have suffered a different kind of harm than the harm suffered by the general public at large while the individual plaintiff was exercising the right with which the public nuisance interfered.
Application to these Facts: The Court reasoned that Caveat Emptor was the rule to apply in this situation because two corporate entities contracted at arms length. Hercules therefore had not duty to Electric as the purchaser of it’s former land. Nuisance Law only created a duty with respect to neighboring land owners. Neighboring Land Owners did not have the opportunity to inspect the property the way both the seller and buyer did, nor did they have the opportunity to negotiate any type of contractual protection. It would circumvent the liability limitation of caveat emptor if the Court allowed Hercules to recover in a Nuisance Case and it would also interfere with the market’s allocation of risk based on real property and contract law. It would not be equitable to force Hercules to pay the Damages for a Nuisance Case when Electric purchased the property at a price that probably reflected the potentiality of environmental contamination at least based on inference from the principles that undergird caveat emptor, namely right to inspect, contractual protection and the neighbor element of nuisance. On top of that, Electric had not experienced the individual harm necessary to allow for there to be a recovery based on public nuisance. The public right was the right to clean water and this was not a harm to Electric. Electric’s property was the source of the contamination. Electric’s situational harm was the cost of the cleanup which was not related to the right with which the contamination interfered (right to clean water), therefore Electric did not have standing for a public nuisance claim.
Counterargument: Some Courts reject the rule and allow a current land owner to recover from a previous one for damages that were caused on the property by the activity of the previous owner.
Conclusion: The counterargument logic is influential in some jurisdictions.
Application and Influence of Counterargument/Conclusion in Law System: Structure of counterargument if argued well can prevail in some jurisdictions.