Judge Rules in Favor of Plaintiffs in Boarhead Farms Case
After a seven-day trial, the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania decided that Carpenter Technology Corp. should pay more than $10 million to five companies that funded remediation of the Boarhead Farms Superfund Site in Upper Black Eddy, Pa., according to an Aug. 19 press release.
The case, Agere Systems, Inc. et al. v. Advanced Environmental Technology Corporation, et al., has been in litigation for six years. It involves the illegal disposal of waste at the site in the 1970s by DeRewal Chemical Co. Judge Legrome Davis found that Carpenter Technology was a customer of DeRewal during that time.
The judge found Carpenter's volumetric share to be 62.60 percent. Carpenter's equitable share was increased, however, to 80 percent considering that the plaintiffs signed two consent decrees agreeing to remediate the site, Carpenter did not cooperate with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Carpenter hired DeRewal, despite knowing the company had a history of pollution violations.
Glenn A. Harris, a partner in the Environmental Group at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP represented the plaintiffs.