Fed Judge Finds NCR & Appleton Papers Liable for $950MM For PCB Cleanup of Superfund Site

October 3, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more info, contact:
Philip Hunsucker – (925) 284-0840, (925) 519-9797, phunsucker [at] hgnlaw.com
Marie Montoya – (925) 284-0840, mmontoya [at] hgnlaw.com

Federal Judge Finds NCR Corp & Appleton Papers Inc. Liable For $950 Million In Cleanup Costs of Nation’s Largest Superfund Site

San Francisco, CA….A Federal judge on Friday ruled in a CERCLA lawsuit that plaintiffs NCR Corp. and Appleton Papers Inc. are liable for an estimated $950 million in combined cleanup costs and reimbursement of natural resource damages related to PCB contamination at the nation’s largest Superfund site, located in eastern Wisconsin.

“We are very pleased with this ruling,” said environmental attorney Philip Hunsucker, of Hunsucker Goodstein & Nelson PC, who represented Menasha Corp., a defendant in the lawsuit. “The ruling confirms that the plaintiffs, NCR Corp. and Appleton Papers Inc., must pay approximately $700 million in site cleanup costs under CERCLA and for natural resource damages (NRDs) estimated by the government at $250 million.”

From the 1950s to the 1970s, NCR manufactured carbonless copy paper using polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at the site, which includes the Lower Fox River. The river flows 39 miles from Lake Winnebago to Green Bay, Wis. Recycling mills later processed NCR’s wastepaper at the site.

In the ruling, US District Court Judge William C. Griesbach of the Eastern District of Wisconsin reversed part of his February 2011 decision which stated that private parties such as the defendants lack legal standing to seek NRDs under Section 113 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). That decision had blocked defendants from suing for NRD reimbursement from NCR and Appleton Papers.

The case, Appleton Papers Inc. and NCR Corp. v. George A. Whiting Paper Co. et al., was filed in 2008 by NCR and Appleton Papers seeking to hold the recycling mills liable under CERCLA for hundreds of millions of dollars they had spent to clean up contamination at the site.

However, in 2009, the Court found that NCR and Appleton Papers profited from the use of PCBs that made their product hazardous, knew there was a risk of environmental damage, and were responsible for cleaning up the contamination. In contrast, the recycling mills had almost no knowledge of their PCB discharges and made no profit from PCBs in the carbonless copy wastepaper they recycled.

Philip C. Hunsucker and David A. Rabbino of Hunsucker Goodstein & Nelson PC represented Menasha Corp. in the lawsuit. The law firm, which has offices in California, Indiana and Washington DC, focuses on environmental litigation, insurance coverage/bad faith, and securities arbitration for investor disputes.

NCR Corp. was represented in the lawsuit by Sidley Austin LLP and Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. Appleton Papers Inc. was represented by Hermes Law Ltd. and DeWitt Ross & Stevens S.C.
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