Going Off-line for the Afternoon

For the past week, I've been in the fair city of Nashville, Tennessee, where I presented to my friend Nita Farahany's torts class at Vanderbilt Law on the benefits of joint and several liability under Superfund. (I've long been interested in how liability schemes shake out for cleanups under the Act, and filed an amicus brief on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in United States v. Atlantic Research a couple years ago.) Interestingly, even as tort-reform advocates succeeded in advancing the cause of abolishing or scaling back common law joint and several liability in state houses across the country, getting 18 states to pass reforms in 1986 and 1987, other lobbyists succeeded in getting Congress to codify the right of contribution among jointly and severally liable parties under Superfund in the 1986 Superfund amendments.

At any rate, I will be flying back to DC this afternoon, and off-line until early evening. Expect more postings on Kerry-Boxer, and any new environmentally relevant cases to come out of the federal appeals courts at that time.