Sable v. General Motors Corp., et al.

This case involved a suit brought forth by Richard Sable, representative of the estate of Leonard Forster, against General Motors Corporation, Chrysler, Ford Motor Company, Sherwin-Williams, and the Warner-Lambert Company. Forster's estate sued these corporations over the hazardous waste they had dumped in a landfill he owned. Leonard Forster had owned the G&H Landfill in Macomb County, Michigan, where from 1956 until 1974, the companies had dumped their industrial waste and chemicals. In 1982, the Environmental Protection Agency notified Forster of contamination problems at his landfill site. The site was placed on the National Priority List of CERCLA (the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act) in 1983. Forster died in 1985 and in 1986, the EPA sent ForsterUs estate a letter informing it that it was a responsible party for the contamination at the site. The estate sued the companies claiming that their disposal of hazardous waste on the property marked a continuing trespass. The estate wanted the companies to pay restitution to it for the 1.5 billion dollar price tag put on cleaning up the site. The case was decided in favor of the companies because they had ceased dumping waste at the landfill in 1974. Therefore, they had not been continuously dumping waste and were not responsible for continuing trespass.

This case is representative of two main problems in environmental justice. The first problem deals with property rights. When a consumer purchases a piece of land, they become responsible for the cost of cleaning it up if it has been found to be contaminated, even if they are not responsible for the contamination. For example, if someone bought a house on top of a former landfill site and this site was found to be contaminated, he would have to pay for the clean-up costs even though he did not pollute the site. Even though Forster did not directly pollute the land, his estate was responsible for cleaning it up because it was his property. This system is often unfair and a lot of people are forced to pay great sums of money to clean up land they did not pollute. Many have called for reform in this area and it will be a hot topic in environmental justice in the years to come.

Another aspect of environmental justice that this case deals with is the actual siting of the landfills. Landfills are much more likely to be located in poorer communities comprised mainly of minorities. It is very likely that these minorities were the ones living near by Forster's landfill that suffered the adverse affects of the contamination. The disproportionate siting of landfills is another area of environmental justice which needs to be addressed in years to come.

Source: http://www.lawsite.com/RECENT/

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