Sierra Club v. Simkins Industries
United States District Court for the District of Maryland
17 ELR 20346 (1986)
- Written by Solveig Singleton, JD
Facts
Simkins Industries, Inc. (Simkins) (defendant) held a discharge permit limiting average discharge of oil and grease to a maximum of 20 milligrams per liter. The Clean Water Act (CWA) required permit holders to file reports of quarterly average discharge. Simkins failed to file the reports for 11 successive quarters. An earlier Fourth Circuit case held that the effect of the CWA’s reporting requirement was to place the burden of showing compliance on the permit holder. The CWA provided a maximum civil penalty of $10,000 per day for each violation. The Fourth Circuit had held that a violation of an average limitation was to be treated as a violation for each day of the time period. The Sierra Club (plaintiff) sued Simkins for the assessment of civil penalties under the CWA’s citizen-suit provisions.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Murray, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 832,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 46,500 briefs, keyed to 994 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.
