Citizens for Equity v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection

599 A.2d 507, 126 N.J. 391, 1991 N.J. LEXIS 823
CourtSupreme Court of New Jersey
DecidedNovember 19, 1991
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 599 A.2d 507 (Citizens for Equity v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Citizens for Equity v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, 599 A.2d 507, 126 N.J. 391, 1991 N.J. LEXIS 823 (N.J. 1991).

Opinion

PER CURIAM.

We affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division substantially for the reasons set forth in the majority opinion below. 252 N.J.Super. 62, 599 A.2d 516 (1990). We add these observations to address two of appellants’ contentions: (1) that the revised regulations^adopted by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) are unauthorized, arbitrary, and unfair, and (2) that the regulations cannot be applied to claims filed prior to their adoption because DEP failed to *394 disclose that it had stopped processing claims while it considered revising the regulations.

It is undisputed that approximately 180 claimants, whose property was in the vicinity of the Gloucester Environmental Management Services (GEMS) landfill, have already received compensation for diminution in real property value pursuant to DEP’s original regulations. Appellants observe that the new regulations, which require claimants to attempt to sell their homes as a prerequisite to compensation, are significantly more restrictive than the regulations originally promulgated, and are unfair to those property owners whose claims will be processed under the revised regulations. Appellants correctly assert that inevitable unfairness arises when a governmental agency applies standards to certain claimants that are more restrictive than standards it had previously applied to similarly-situated claimants. Acknowledging that unfairness, the reviewing court must determine whether the agency action is nevertheless authorized, reasonable, and supported by sufficient evidence. A.A. Mastrangelo, Inc. v. Department of Envtl. Protection, 90 N.J. 666, 687, 449 A.2d 516 (1982); New Jersey Guild of Hearing Aid Dispensers v. Long, 75 N.J. 544, 562-64, 384 A.2d 795 (1978).

The enabling legislation, the Sanitary Landfill Facility Closure and Contingency Fund Act, N.J.S.A. 13:1E-100 to -116 (the Act), strongly supports the Appellate Division’s conclusion that the revised regulations are authorized. Moreover, our reading of the Act suggests that DEP’s initial regulations regarding reimbursement for loss of property value may have been too permissive. Thus, the issues raised by this case implicate the power of a governmental agency to change regulations that are unsound.

The Act’s purpose is to provide compensation for damages from the operation and closure of landfills. The Act taxes owners and operators of sanitary landfills and directs the revenue into a contingency fund administered by DEP. *395 N.J.S.A. 13:1E-104 to -105. The contingency fund is strictly liable “for all direct and indirect damages, no matter by whom sustained, proximately resulting from the operations or closure of any sanitary landfill.” N.J.S.A. 13:1E-106.

Compensable damages under the Act include but are not limited to

(1) The cost of restoring, repairing or replacing any real or personal property damaged or destroyed;
(2) The cost of restoration and replacement, where possible, of any natural resource damaged or destroyed, including any potable water supply;
(3) The cost of any personal injuries, including medical expenses incurred and income lost as a result thereof; and
(4) The costs of the design, construction, installation, operation and maintenance of any device or action deemed necessary by the department to clean up, remedy, mitigate, monitor or analyze any threat to the public health, safety or welfare of the citizens of the State, including the installation and maintenance of methane gas monitors and vents and leachate monitoring wells and collection systems, and the sampling and analysis of any public or private potable water supply. [N.J.S.A. 13:1E-106.]

Thus, the Legislature specifically designated as compensable the costs incurred from specific damage to property or natural resources, personal injuries, or the need to monitor or remediate damages created by the landfill. Although diminution of real-property value is qualitatively different from the kinds of damages enumerated by the Legislature, DEP's initial regulations specifically authorized compensation therefor by defining damages to include

(1) The cost of restoring, repairing or replacing any real or personal property damaged or destroyed, and the diminution in fair market value of any real property. [N.J.A.C. 7:1T-1.5 (emphasis added).]

Those regulations also required that claimants “produce substantial evidence” of damage. N.J.A.C. 7:1I-1.7(a).

As evidenced by the certification of the administrator of the Sanitary Landfill Contingency Fund (Fund), approximately eighty percent of all claims filed against the Fund through September 30, 1988, were filed by persons owning property in the vicinity of the GEMS landfill. DEP asserts that of the approximately $5.1 million in claims paid by the Fund as of that date, it awarded about $4.8 million to claimants alleging diminu *396 tion of property value based on proximity of their homes to the GEMS landfill. That experience, combined with the Fund’s potential statewide liability for damages attributable to diminution of property value because of proximity to GEMS and other landfills, prompted DEP to consider revising its regulations. The administrator observed:

Since the potential liability of the Fund is so enormous, we wanted to make sure that the Fund was administered equitably to ensure the continued availability of monies for people who could satisfy the requirements for compensation. In attempting to address these adverse effects, it was decided that the regulations should be revised. One of the changes was to require that a claimant make a good faith attempt to sell his property. It did not appear that to require sales would depress the local real estate market and escalate damages paid by the Fund. Moreover, we felt the sales requirement, which became N.J.A.C. 7:11-3.3, would be a reasonable way to provide us with additional evidence of actual damage caused by landfill operations and provide the information needed to continuously monitor the claims process.

The requirement that a property owner attempt to sell his or her home as a condition of compensation represents an attempt to verify that diminution of value attributable to the landfill has occurred. We have no doubt that DEP’s delegated authority under the Act authorizes such a requirement, particularly in view of the Legislature’s apparent intention to sanction compensation for specific and discernible damages. We also concur in the Appellate Division’s conclusion that the sale requirement in the revised regulations is neither arbitrary nor unreasonable, considering DEP’s experience with its original regulations.

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599 A.2d 507, 126 N.J. 391, 1991 N.J. LEXIS 823, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/citizens-for-equity-v-new-jersey-department-of-environmental-protection-nj-1991.