Date: 03-01-2002

Case Style: Blasland, Bouck & Lee, Inc. v. City of North Miami

Case Number: 00-14975

Judge: Carnes

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

Plaintiff's Attorney: Unknown

Defendant's Attorney: Unknown

Description: The City of North Miami hired Blasland, Bouck and Lee (Blasland), an environmental engineering firm, to clean up a polluted parcel of land owned by the City. The City was required to clean up the land by a consent decree it had entered into with the United States Environmental Protection Agency in settlement of a lawsuit the EPA had brought against the City under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601 et seq. Midway through the cleanup job, the City terminated Blasland's contract. Blasland believed that the City had terminated the contract without cause and had failed to pay all the money owed under the contract; the City believed that Blasland was not entitled to payment because it had been negligent in doing the work. This litigation is the fruit of their disagreement.

Blasland sued the City to recover the money owed under their contract, asserting theories of recovery that included breach of contract and CERCLA cost recovery. The City counterclaimed for professional negligence, breach of contract, and CERCLA contribution. All of the claims but the CERCLA claims were tried to a jury, which found in favor of Blasland on its breach of contract claim and in favor of the City on its professional negligence (malpractice) and breach of contract counterclaims. The CERCLA claims were then tried to the court, which ruled in favor of Blasland and against the City. That ruling provided an alternate ground of support for the damage award the jury had returned for Blasland, but it did not add to the total award. After the verdicts, the court also ordered that the City's counterclaim award be set off by amounts the City had recovered in a previous CERCLA contribution suit against the companies that had shipped the waste to the landfill. That setoff reduced the City's counterclaim award to zero, and the court entered judgment for Blasland in the full amount awarded it by the jury, plus prejudgment interest on that amount.

The City appeals, raising three points of error. Blasland cross-appeals, raising its own four points of error, including one point that requires us to confront an issue of first impression in this circuit about the availability of defenses to a CERCLA suit. For the reasons discussed below, we affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand.

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Click the case caption above for the full text of the Court's opinion.

Outcome: The district court's judgment is AFFIRMED, except in these two respects: (1) the award of prejudgment interest is REVERSED insofar as it awards interest that Blasland would not have recovered if there had not been a setoff of the City's counterclaim award; and (2) its decision on Blasland's CERCLA claim is REVERSED insofar as it relied on the contractual pay-when-paid clause as a ground for denying Blasland recovery of its CERCLA costs from the City. The case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Plaintiff's Experts: Unavailable

Defendant's Experts: Unavailable

Comments: None