3550 Stevens Creek Associates v. Barclays Bank of California
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
915 F.2d 1355 (1990)
Facts
First Valley Corporation built a building at 3550 Stevens Creek Boulevard in San Jose, California, in 1963. The building used asbestos for insulation and fire retardants. Barclays Bank of California (Barclays) (defendant) acquired title to the building after Barclays purchased First Valley’s assets and First Valley dissolved. 3550 Stevens Creek Associates (Stevens Creek) (plaintiff) bought the building from Barclays in 1984, then spent more than $100,000 on asbestos removal. The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) provides, among other things, for private actors to recover costs for cleaning up hazardous waste sites from private actors that dumped toxic substances at these sites. Additionally, CERCLA established Superfund, a fund for hazardous-waste cleanup. Stevens Creek sued Barclays under CERCLA to recover its costs of removing asbestos from the building. The district court found in favor of Barclays. Stevens Creek appealed.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Rymer, J.)
Dissent (Pregerson, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 705,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 44,400 briefs, keyed to 983 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
