id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
inlawrev-18017	Smith, S. N.; Thomas, Seth M.; Andres, Jennifer; Calhoon, Victoria; Murray, Sarah	2010-2011 Environmental Law Survey Freedom	2012	46	.pdf	application/pdf	20529	1136	62	Id. 2012] ENVIRONMENTAL LAW 1113 C. CERCLA Action Could Proceed Despite Preclusion of ELA Claim In Valbruna Slater Steel Corp. v. Joslyn Manufacturing Co.,117 the defendant Joslyn Manufacturing Co. owned and operated a steel mill in Fort Wayne, Indiana from 1928 until 1981.118 Joslyn sold the site to Slater Steels Corporation in February 1981.119 Slater attempted several times to seek indemnification from Joslyn for the contamination spanning from 1988 until 1999, but Joslyn denied these requests.120 Slater filed suit in Indiana state court in July of 2000 bringing two claims of contractual indemnification and another Environmental Legal Action (ELA) claim pursuant to Indiana Code section 13-30-9-1.121 The trial court dismissed Slater’s ELA claim.122 In June 2003, Slater filed for bankruptcy, and Valbruna Slater Stainless Inc. (“Valbruna”) purchased the site.123 The purchase agreement for the site noted the existence of the lawsuit and gave Valbruna the “‘right to seek to become a party to the [l]awsuit. ”161 The state court, agreeing with VIM, instructed VIM to propose a new, more narrow intervention.162 The intervenors, in turn, voluntarily withdrew their claims that fell beyond the scope of IDEM’s suit, sent a Notice of Intent to File a Complaint under RCRA to VIM, IDEM, and the EPA, and when neither IDEM nor the EPA filed a lawsuit to assert the plaintiffs’ claims, filed an action in the Northern District of Indiana under the RCRA citizen-suit provision.163 The plaintiffs’ suit sought relief under both the “violation” and “endangerment” provisions of RCRA and additionally asserted common law claims of nuisance, trespass, negligence, negligence per se, and gross negligence.164 Additionally, it went further than IDEM’s claims and included “A” and “B” grade waste in addition to “C” grade waste.165 After further inspections of the Elkhart site resulted in additional IDEM violations, IDEM filed a second suit in Indiana state court against VIM.166 VIM then moved to dismiss the federal lawsuit, arguing that the federal court did not have jurisdiction over the RCRA claims because IDEM was addressing those same claims in state court.167 The district court granted VIM’s motion and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims, and the plaintiffs subsequently appealed to the Seventh Circuit.168 159.	cache/inlawrev-18017.pdf	txt/inlawrev-18017.txt