United States v. Hooker Chemicals & Plastics Corp.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Western District of New York denied intervenors' motion for litigation costs and attorney fees under section 505(d) of the Clean Water Act. The court held that the intervenors achieved no success on the merits, and that their intervention and purported effects on the settlement were procedural, speculative, voluntary, or otherwise insufficient to support a fee award.

Holdings

1. A party may not receive attorney fees or litigation costs under Clean Water Act section 505(d) when it achieved no success, or only trivial success, on the merits.
2. A successful motion to intervene is a purely procedural victory and, without related success on the merits, cannot support an award under section 505(d) of the Clean Water Act.
3. The intervenors' alleged contributions concerning storage lagoons, excavation, a swale area, groundwater drainage, property purchases, record development, and air monitoring did not constitute success against Hooker sufficient to support fees.

Questions Presented

1. Whether plaintiff-intervenors who achieved no success on the merits were entitled to litigation costs and attorney fees under section 505(d) of the Clean Water Act.
2. Whether the intervenors' successful motion to intervene constituted a sufficient basis for an attorney-fee award.
3. Whether the intervenors' alleged contributions to or influence on settlement implementation constituted merits success sufficient to support a fee award.

Disposition

other