DETROIT – The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California recently dismissed an environmental contamination case against Hoyt Corp., a drycleaning equipment manufacturer formerly based in Wesport, Mass. The plaintiff, Hinds Investments LP, claimed Hoyt Corp. was responsible for perchloroethylene contamination on its property and was seeking damages for environmental remediation costs.
The court ruled that although Hoyt's equipment was designed to recover the chemical for reuse, Hoyt did not have any control over the tenant's operations, or involvement in installing the equipment or inspecting the disposal of the tenant's waste products. Therefore, the court stated, Hoyt could not be held liable under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation & Liability Act (CERCLA) or the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA). Further, the case did not meet the pleading standards set by the United States Supreme Court in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal.
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