Experience
Re-Purchase of Property / PCB Contamination
Negotiated the re-purchase of a commercial property where the seller failed to clean up PCB contamination pursuant to the original purchase contract assigned to our client in the late 1990's.
White Consolidated Industries, Inc. v. Westinghouse Electric Corporation
We were lead counsel for Westinghouse Electric Corporation in litigation involving contract, CERCLA and other claims against Westinghouse arising out of clean up of TCE contamination at a manufacturing facility sold by Westinghouse to plaintiff. We obtained summary judgment for Westinghouse on all claims, which was affirmed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. White Consolidated Industries, Inc. v. Westinghouse Electric Corporation, 179 F.3d 403 (6th Cir. 1999).
Litigation
When an asset-seller sought to pass its responsibility to contribute to the cost to cleanup a landfill in West Chester, Ohio, to an asset-buyer, Borden, Inc. turned to Dinsmore for counsel and defense. In a bench trial with numerous witnesses and hundreds of thousands of documents, we convinced the court that the asset-seller retained the cleanup liability and that Borden did not assume the liability. Subsequently, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision in its entirety (OXY USA, Inc. v. Borden, Inc., 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 694 (January 7, 2007)). Borden’s victory not only prevented the asset-seller from transferring its liability for the cost to clean up the landfill at issue in the case, but prevented the asset-seller from alleging that Borden was responsible for its cleanup obligations at any other site in the United States where any of the more than half a dozen facilities that were the subject of the sale may have sent waste for disposal.