Haber Land Co. v. Am. Steel City Indus. Leasing, Inc.

388 F. Supp. 3d 1050
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Indiana
DecidedMay 3, 2019
DocketNo. 1:18-cv-04091-JMS-MJD
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 388 F. Supp. 3d 1050 (Haber Land Co. v. Am. Steel City Indus. Leasing, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Haber Land Co. v. Am. Steel City Indus. Leasing, Inc., 388 F. Supp. 3d 1050 (S.D. Ind. 2019).

Opinion

III.

DISCUSSION

Caterpillar's arguments fall generally into two categories. The first is comprised of fundamentally legal arguments-namely, that Haber's nuisance, illegal dumping and TSCA claims fail as a matter of law and would fail as a matter of law regardless of the detail Haber may add to its complaint. Mosey's argument, applicable just to Haber's nuisance claim, also falls into this first category.

The second includes pleading arguments. Caterpillar broadly contends that Haber has missed the mark in pleading plausible claims against it.4

The Court begins by addressing the legal arguments directed against Haber's nuisance, illegal dumping, and TSCA claims before turning to the alleged pleading *1055issues in Haber's Second Amended Complaint.

A. Nuisance

Both movants contend that Haber cannot maintain a nuisance claim based upon a prior landowners' actions, relying primarily on district court cases interpreting Indiana law. [Filing No. 43 at 5-7; Filing No. 43 at 15-16.] Mosey additionally argues that Haber's claim fails because there is presently no nuisance to abate or enjoin. [Filing No. 43 at 7.]

In response, Haber clarifies that its nuisance claim is based upon the Defendants' ownership and maintenance of a nuisance on the adjoining land-specifically, on the larger NATCO Site, of which Haber's property is only one portion. [Filing No. 77 at 3-7; Filing No. 78 at 16-20.]

The movants reiterate their arguments in reply and emphasize that a nuisance claim is unavailable because they owned the NATCO Site and engaged in the alleged conduct years before Haber acquired its portion of the property. [Filing No. 91 at 3-8; Filing No. 92 at 14-16.]

Notwithstanding the insight provided by the federal courts' interpretation of Indiana law, the Indiana Supreme Court (whose caselaw is binding as to Haber's state-law claims, see BMD Contractors, Inc. v. Fid. & Deposit Co. of Maryland , 679 F.3d 643, 648 (7th Cir. 2012) ) counsels that the Court's "first task when interpreting a statute is to give its words their plain meaning." J.D.M. v. State , 68 N.E.3d 1073, 1077 (Ind. 2017) (internal quotation omitted). This guidance dictates that the Court begin with the text of the nuisance statute:

Whatever is:
(1) injurious to health;
(2) indecent;
(3) offensive to the senses; or
(4) an obstruction to the free use of property;
so as essentially to interfere with the comfortable enjoyment of life or property, is a nuisance, and the subject of an action.

Ind. Code § 32-30-6-6. Section 7 provides: "An action to abate or enjoin a nuisance may be brought by any person whose: (1) property is injuriously affected; or (2) personal enjoyment is lessened; by the nuisance." Ind. Code § 32-30-6-7(a). Finally, section 8 provides: "If a proper case is made, the nuisance may be enjoined or abated and damages recovered for the nuisance." Ind. Code § 32-30-6-8.

The movants' arguments raise several issues. The first is a pleading issue; Mosey contends that Haber's claim for maintaining a nuisance on neighboring portions of the NATCO Site is inconsistent with its Revised Amended Complaint.5 [Filing No. 91 at 4-6.] As Mosey highlights, Haber alleges that "Defendants illegally dumped and disposed of" hazardous materials "on the NATCO Site, including the Haber field." [Filing No. 60 at 7.] Mosey wants the Court to read this allegation to provide that, because Defendants dumped on Haber's property, it did not maintain a nuisance on the neighboring portions of the NATCO Site. Such a reading is not only contrary to the Rule 12(b)(6) standard, which requires that reasonable inferences be drawn in Haber's favor, but it is also unnatural. The better reading is that Defendants dumped waste on many parts of *1056the NATCO Site, including the portion Haber did not purchase, such that Defendants maintained a nuisance on the adjoining parcels which impacted Haber's enjoyment of its own parcel.

This reasonable reading of Haber's Revised Amended Complaint takes it out of the realm of the line of persuasive (but not binding, see Camreta v. Greene , 563 U.S. 692, 709 n.7, 131 S.Ct. 2020, 179 L.Ed.2d 1118 (2011) ) district court authority holding that "a buyer of property may sue a prior owner for nuisance based on activities undertaken on the same property and alleged to have harmed the same property." Lilly Indus., Inc. v. Health-Chem Corp. , 974 F. Supp. 702, 708 (S.D. Ind. 1997) ; Sanyo N. Am. Corp. v. Avco Corp. , 2008 WL 2691095, at *7 (S.D. Ind. 2008) (granting motion to dismiss because "a current landowner" cannot sue a "prior landowner for past hazardous waste contamination" on a nuisance theory). The Indiana courts have at least twice acknowledged this line of authority and declined to weigh in. Reed v. Reid , 980 N.E.2d 277, 293 (Ind. 2012) ("The Defendants primarily rely on two unreported Southern District of Indiana cases [including Sanyo ] which contain some dicta in this regard, but which addressed an entirely different question than the one presented here."); Elkhart Foundry & Mach. Co. v. City of Elkhart Redevelopment Comm'n for City of Elkhart , 112 N.E.3d 1123, 1131 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018), trans. denied ,

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Bluebook (online)
388 F. Supp. 3d 1050, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/haber-land-co-v-am-steel-city-indus-leasing-inc-insd-2019.