Tennessee Riverkeeper, Inc. v. Ricky Ray

Summary

The court denied Tennessee Riverkeeper, Inc.’s motion to alter or amend the judgment or, alternatively, for a new trial under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59. The court held that Riverkeeper failed to prove a pollutant discharge necessary to support its Clean Water Act claim and had forfeited its open-dumping theory under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The court also upheld the application of Tennessee’s permitting exemption based on the jury’s factual findings regarding the landfill and its fill material.

Holdings

1. Riverkeeper could not obtain relief on its Clean Water Act claim without threshold proof of a pollutant discharge into navigable waters. In addition, Riverkeeper forfeited any theory not included in the final pretrial order, and its pretrial theory expressly required proof that Ray discharged pollutants in violation of the NPDES permit.
2. Riverkeeper failed to present sufficient evidence that the muddy water shown in its photographs and videos contained a Clean Water Act pollutant. The court therefore properly granted Ray judgment as a matter of law and denied Rule 59(e) relief.
3. The court did not clearly err in applying Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 0400-11-01-.02(1)(b)(3)(xiii) to exempt Ray's site from the landfill-permit requirement after the jury found that the site used solely the listed fill materials.
4. Riverkeeper was not entitled to a new trial under Rule 59(a)(1)(A). The court properly withheld the unsupported Clean Water Act claim from the jury, and the court—not the jury—decided the legal applicability of the Tennessee permitting exemption.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the court clearly erred by requiring Riverkeeper to prove a pollutant discharge to prevail on its Clean Water Act claim.
2. Whether the court clearly erred in determining that Riverkeeper presented insufficient evidence of a pollutant discharge.
3. Whether the court clearly erred in applying Tennessee's permitting exemption to the RCRA landfill-permitting claim.
4. Whether Riverkeeper was entitled to a new trial because the Clean Water Act claim was not submitted to the jury.
5. Whether the court improperly allowed the jury to decide the legal applicability of the Tennessee permitting exemption.

Disposition

other