Alan Meghrig, et al. v. KFC Western, Inc. (516 U.S. 479)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 19, 1996 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 516 U.S. 479 · 116 S. Ct. 1251
- Decided
- March 19, 1996
- Term
- October Term 1995
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice O'Connor
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Justice O’Connor delivered the opinion of the Court. We consider whether § 7002 of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), 42 U. S. C. § 6972, authorizes a private cause of action to recover the prior cost of cleaning up toxic waste that does not, at the time of suit, continue to pose an endangerment to health or the environment. We conclude that it does not. I Respondent KFC Western, Inc. (KFC), owns and operates a “Kentucky Fried Chicken” restaurant on a parcel of property in Los Angeles. In 1988, KFC discovered during the course of a construction project that the property was contaminated with petroleum. The County of Los Angeles Department of Health Services ordered KFC to attend to the problem, and KFC spent $211,000 removing and disposing of the oil-tainted soil. Three years later, KFC brought this suit under the citizen suit provision of RCRA, 90 Stat. 2825, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 6972(a), seeking to recover these cleanup costs from petitioners Alan and Margaret Meghrig. KFC claimed that the contaminated soil was a “solid waste” covered by RCRA, see 42 U. S. C. § 6903(27), that it had previously posed an “imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment,” see § 6972(a)(1)(B), and that the Meghrigs were responsible for “equitable restitution” of KFC’s cleanup costs under § 6972(a) because, as prior owners of the property, they had…
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