Pape v. Lake States Wood Preserving, Inc.

948 F. Supp. 697, 1995 WL 904836
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Michigan
DecidedOctober 18, 1995
Docket2:95-cv-00115
StatusPublished

This text of 948 F. Supp. 697 (Pape v. Lake States Wood Preserving, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Michigan primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Pape v. Lake States Wood Preserving, Inc., 948 F. Supp. 697, 1995 WL 904836 (W.D. Mich. 1995).

Opinion

OPINION

.ROBERT HOLMES BELL, District Judge.

Before this court is defendant’s motions to dismiss and for sanctions, and plaintiffs motion to amend his complaint. Plaintiff has brought a citizens suit seeking injunctive relief under the Federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), 42 U.S.C. § 6972, 1 as well as all supplemental state law *699 claims. For the reasons that follow, defendant’s motion to dismiss is granted.

I.

Defendant argues that plaintiffs complaint was merely a refiling of a largely verbatim copy of a suit filed by other plaintiffs, Bragg v. Wood Island Waste Management, Inc., No. 2:93-CV-276 (W.D.Mich.1994), that was dismissed and, therefore, the instant ease was filed in bad faith and simply to harass. Such an argument might have merit were it not for the details. The foregoing case was dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because the plaintiffs admittedly failed to comply with the notice requirements under RCRA and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). It was not dismissed with prejudice. Likewise, defendant’s assertion that this case should be dismissed, because plaintiff has failed to allege that navigable waters were polluted from a point source by a discharge of defendant, is without merit. References to cases construing the Federal Water Pollution Control Act’s requirement that navigable waters be polluted are irrelevant. Unlike that Act, section 6903’s definition of “disposal,” for purposes of citizens suits under section 6972, includes the discharge of solid or hazardous waste into “any waters, including ground waters.”

II.

Defendant also contends that plaintiff lacks standing for this court to hear his complaint. Plaintiffs pro se complaint contains an allegation concerning a health hazard that “endangers Plaintiffs well being as well as Plaintiffs fellow citizens”:

64. Lake States as owner and/or operator of the Facilities and Waste Pile Facility, is contributing to the past and present handling, storage, treatment or disposal of hazardous waste which may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.

Acknowledging that the initial complaint was inadequate to establish standing, plaintiffs proposed amended complaint adds, with the assistance of counsel, the following paragraphs:

16. The attraction of the area for campers, tourists, and other visitors is its location in the midst of an array of natural resources, including Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Grand Island National Recreation Area, Lake Superior and other lakes, rivers and scenic and recreational resources. Plaintiff enjoys the aesthetic and recreational values of the area surrounding the Lake States HWM facility and the opportunities the area affords for wildlife photography, canoeing, hunting, fishing, camping, sight seeing, snowmobiling and swimming. Plaintiff has been using the area to pursue these activities on a regular basis since 1962 to present.
17. Because of the hazardous waste that Lake States has dumped at the site, the wildlife has left the area and/or died, thus preventing [plaintiff] from fully conducting his wildlife photography. Plaintiff no longer swims or canoes in the surrounding waters because of the pollution that has seeped from the Lake States site. Plaintiff no longer fishes in the surrounding water because many of the fish have died and he fears that the remaining fish have been poisoned. Plaintiff has similarly been forced to curtail or cease his other activities in the surrounding area because of the infiltration of hazardous waste. All of this has deprived Plaintiff of his right to use and enjoy this section of the Upper Peninsula.

Plaintiff lives in Wallace, Michigan, approximately 150 miles south and west of defendant’s property in Munising Township (Alger County), Michigan.

Article Three of the Constitution extends the judicial power to cases and controversies. The first requirement implicit in this grant of authority is the requirement that a plaintiff allege an injury' in fact to a legally protected right — an injury which is concrete and particularized, actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 2136, 119 L.Ed.2d 351, 364 (1992). This restraint arises out of the nature of judicial power, for “ ‘[t]he province of *700 the court/ as Chief Justice Marshall said in Marbury v. Madison, [5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 2 L.Ed. 60 (1803) ], ‘is, solely, to decide on the rights of individuals.’ ” Id. at 576, 112 S.Ct. at 2145, 119 L.Ed.2d at 374. “Vindicating the public interest is the function of Congress and the chief executive.” Id.

The standing allegations in plaintiffs proposed amended complaint improves upon his initial pleading insofar as he attempts to present past injury that is personal to himself. The proposed amended complaint, however, still fails to show imminent injury. As the Supreme Court held in Lujan in another context,

“‘[p]ast exposure to illegal conduct does not in itself show a present case or controversy regarding injunctive relief ... if unaccompanied by any continuing, present adverse affects.’ ” ... [T]he affiants’ profession of an ‘inten[t]’ to return to the places he had visited before — where they will presumably, this time, be deprived of the opportunity to observe animals of the endangered species — is simply not enough. Such ‘some day5 intentions — without any description of concrete plans, or indeed even any specification of when the some day will be — do not support a finding of [ ] ‘actual or imminent’ injury____

Id. at 564, 112 S.Ct. at 2138, 119 L.Ed.2d at 366-67 (citations omitted). Taking plaintiffs allegations of defendant’s illegal conduct in causing pollution to the surrounding area as true for the sake of analysis, he has not shown on the face of his pleadings that he intends to visit and use the area for the alleged purposes, let alone when he intends to make use of the surrounding property. As such, this court finds no imminent injury.

III.

Moreover, even if such allegations of specific intent were contained within his pleading, the allegations in plaintiffs proposed amended complaint cannot survive a motion to dismiss. This court treats defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure of the pleading to state a claim upon which relief may be granted as a motion for summary judgment. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b). A motion for summary judgment shall be granted if the evidence on file “show[s] that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P.

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Related

Marbury v. Madison
5 U.S. 137 (Supreme Court, 1803)
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.
477 U.S. 242 (Supreme Court, 1986)
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife
504 U.S. 555 (Supreme Court, 1992)
Attorney General v. Lake States Wood Preserving, Inc
501 N.W.2d 213 (Michigan Court of Appeals, 1993)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
948 F. Supp. 697, 1995 WL 904836, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/pape-v-lake-states-wood-preserving-inc-miwd-1995.