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Ind. Code § 13-30-9-3

Allocation of costs of removal or remedial action

Applied in 5 court decisions — leading case Nyby v. Waste Management, Inc. (2000)

Most recently applied in Indiana Insurance Company v. Patricia Kopetsky, and KB Home Indiana Inc. (June 2014)

As added by P.L.59-1997, SEC.23.

How often courts cite this section

20002010201410
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

Sec. 3. (a) In resolving an environmental legal action, a court shall allocate the costs of the removal or remedial action in proportion to the acts or omissions of each party, without regard to any theory of joint and several liability, using legal and equitable factors that the court determines are appropriate, including the following:

(1) The degree of care exercised by each party with respect to the release of the hazardous substance or petroleum caused or contributed to by each party.

(2) The amount and characteristics of the hazardous substance or petroleum that was released.

(3) The risks posed by the hazardous substance or petroleum based on the use of the site at the time the hazardous substance or petroleum was released into the environment and the cost effectiveness of the removal or remedial action to address the risks.

(4) Whether a party's acts or omissions violated a federal, state, or local statute, rule, regulation, or ordinance.

(5) The extent to which each party exercised actual and direct managerial control over the site where the hazardous substance or petroleum was released at the time of the release.

(6) Whether an award of reasonable costs, including attorney's fees, to a party involved in the environmental legal action is appropriate.

(7) Other equitable factors, including unjust enrichment, that the court determines are appropriate.

(b) Notwithstanding subsection (a), if parties have entered into a contract that allocates the costs or responsibility for the removal or remedial action, the terms of the contract control the allocation of costs between the parties to the contract. However, the terms of a contract may not affect the recovery of costs by the state unless the state is a signatory to the contract.

Official source: Indiana General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain Indiana statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.