ANR v. Mountain Valley Marketing, Inc.

CourtVermont Superior Court
DecidedSeptember 13, 2006
Docket41-02-02 Vtec
StatusPublished

This text of ANR v. Mountain Valley Marketing, Inc. (ANR v. Mountain Valley Marketing, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Vermont Superior Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
ANR v. Mountain Valley Marketing, Inc., (Vt. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinion

STATE OF VERMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COURT

Secretary, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, } Plaintiff, } } v. } Docket No. 41‐2‐02 Vtec } (Stage II Vapor Recovery) Mountain Valley Marketing, Inc., } Respondent. }

Secretary, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, } Plaintiff, } } v. } Docket No. 278‐12‐02 Vtec } (Stage II Vapor Recovery) Premium Petroleum, Inc., } Respondent. }

Secretary, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, } Plaintiff, } } v. } Docket No. 176‐8‐02 Vtec } (Stage I and II Vapor Recovery) Premium Petroleum, Inc., Odessa Corp., } Timberlake Associates, and Wesco, Inc., } Respondents. }

Secretary, Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, } Plaintiff, } } v. } Docket No. 175‐8‐02 Vtec } (Hazardous Waste Premium Petroleum, Inc., Odessa Corp., } Management Regulations) Timberlake Associates, and Wesco, Inc., } Respondents. }

Decision and Order on Pending Motions

In all of the above‐captioned cases, the Secretary of the Vermont Agency of Natural

1 Resources (“ANR” or “the Agency”) issued administrative orders pursuant to 10 V.S.A.

§8008 against the respective respondents, all of whom timely requested a hearing in

Environmental Court. In all of the above‐captioned cases, Respondents (which are all

related corporations or entities) are represented by Jon Anderson, Esq. and William E.

Simendinger, Esq.; and the Agency of Natural Resources is represented by Mark J. Di

Stefano, Esq. and Laura Q. Pelosi, Esq.

Docket No. 41‐2‐02 Vtec involves an administrative order issued on January 24,

2002, regarding Respondent Mountain Valley Marketing, Inc., alleging violations of the Air

Pollution Control Regulations regarding Stage II Vapor Recovery six‐and‐a‐half months

in duration at its Waitsfield gasoline station, and imposing a monetary penalty of $27,500.

Docket No. 278‐12‐02 Vtec involves an administrative order issued on November 26, 2002,

regarding Respondent Premium Petroleum, Inc., alleging violations of the Air Pollution

Control Regulations regarding Stage II Vapor Recovery eighteen months in duration at its

Colchester gasoline station, and imposing a monetary penalty of $63,500. Docket No. 176‐

8‐02 Vtec involves an administrative order issued on July 31, 2002, regarding Respondents

Premium Petroleum, Inc., Odessa Corp., Timberlake Associates, and Wesco, Inc., alleging

violations of the Air Pollution Control Regulations regarding Stage II Vapor Recovery at

three different gasoline stations (and regarding Stage I Vapor Recovery at one of those

stations), and imposing a monetary penalty of $6,500. Docket No. 175‐8‐02 Vtec involves

an administrative order issued on July 31, 2002, regarding Respondents Premium

Petroleum, Inc., Odessa Corp., Timberlake Associates, and Wesco, Inc., alleging 25

violations of 13 sections of the Hazardous Waste Management Regulations regarding

exempt and small‐quantity generators of hazardous waste, at nine different gasoline

stations, and imposing a monetary penalty of $59,900. The total amount of monetary

penalties imposed in the administrative enforcement orders that are the subject of the

above‐captioned cases is $157,400, involving approximately 33 alleged violations at

2 fourteen different gasoline stations, if each alleged violation at each different station is

considered a separate alleged violation. The parties dispute the appropriate type, amount

and source of discovery, both in connection with Respondents’ preparation of a selective

enforcement argument, and in connection with the Agency’s discovery of Respondents’

financial information.

In its decisions involving discovery issues among the same parties in superior and

district courts, Wesco, Inc. v. Sorrell, 2004 VT 102, and State of Vermont v. Wesco Inc. and

Odessa Corp., 2006 VT 93, the Supreme Court has emphasized that the trial courts have

inherent power to control discovery in litigation pending before them, and that discovery

rulings may be revisited and altered by the trial court as the litigation unfolds. In the

present case, Respondents continue to seek discovery of information from the Enforcement

Division of the Agency, in aid of their argument that they have been unconstitutionally

singled out for enforcement by the Agency’s issuance of the above‐captioned

administrative enforcement orders.

As explained in our October 12, 2004, August 11, 2003, and July 7, 2003 orders, to

succeed in an argument of selective enforcement, particularly in a civil case, Respondents

must satisfy both prongs of the two‐part test described in In re Appeal of Letourneau, 168

Vt. 539, 549 (1998, as corrected 1999). The first prong is that “the person, compared with

others similarly situated, was selectively treated;” the second is that the “selective

treatment was based on impermissible considerations such as . . . intent to inhibit or

punish the exercise of constitutional rights, or malicious or bad faith intent to injure a

person.”

Respondents initially sought extensive discovery regarding both prongs of this test

for selective enforcement. That is, on the one hand they sought to obtain information on

the Agency’s treatment of other regulated entities, and, on the other hand, they sought to

3 obtain information going to the motivation of the Agency and its personnel in the

particular instances of the issuance of the four administrative enforcement orders that are

the subject of the above‐captioned cases.

This Court issued orders regulating discovery in stages, to allow necessary

discovery while minimizing its imposition on the work of the Agency and its enforcement

division. This Court ruled that Respondents are entitled to discovery on the first prong of

the selective enforcement test, allowing discovery of only a subset of “materials generated

in connection with orders, assurances of discontinuance, or court proceedings under 10

V.S.A. Chapter 201 as of or after November 2, 1990:” those falling within the classification

of public records and available under Vermont’s Access to Public Records law absent the

pendency of this litigation. This Court reasoned that, under 4 V.S.A. § 1004(a), the

requested information relating to the first prong was “necessary to a full and fair

determination of these proceedings” in connection with Respondents’ effort to defend

against the administrative order proceedings by asserting a selective enforcement defense.

It is important to understand that this Court entirely postponed ruling on any

disclosure of information going to the second prong of the selective enforcement test, that

is, relating to the motivation of the Agency and its personnel, until and unless Respondents

would have made out a prima facie case to the Court on the first prong. To do that,

Respondents would have to show there were other entities that both were similarly

situated and were treated differently. In the present phase of discovery, the Court allowed

Respondents access only to enough information1 for them to determine if they could make

1 The Court provided for most of that discovery to come from documents in the Court’s own files (whether at the Court’s offices or at the Public Records repository). The Court ruled that Respondents could obtain the docket sheets and look through the files, and could determine whether they involve ‘similarly situated’ entities by whatever test of similarity Respondents wished to employ.

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Related

In Re Appeals of Letourneau
726 A.2d 31 (Supreme Court of Vermont, 1998)
State v. Wesco, Inc.
2006 VT 93 (Supreme Court of Vermont, 2006)
Agency of Natural Resources v. Deso
2003 VT 36 (Supreme Court of Vermont, 2003)
Wesco, Inc. v. Sorrell
2004 VT 102 (Supreme Court of Vermont, 2004)

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