Total Petroleum, Inc. v. United States

Total Petroleum, Inc. (Total) (plaintiff) owned a crude oil collection and pipeline system on the banks of Caddo Creek. In October 1984, heavy rains caused Caddo Creek to flood. At noon on October 27, Clinton Owens, Total’s local district maintenance manager, checked Total’s pipeline. Owens found that the pipeline was submerged. Owens checked for erosion of the creek’s banks and concluded that there was no immediate danger to the brace supports holding the pipeline. Owens later testified that he had been a lifelong resident of the area and had never before seen the pipeline submerged. On the morning of October 28, Owens found that one of the brace supports had been washed away along with part of the bank. The pipeline had ruptured, and oil was pouring into the creek, mingling with oil from another spill from the upstream facilities of Mobil Oil Corporation (Mobil). Total worked with Mobil to clean up the spill. Total then sued the United States (defendant) under 33 U.S.C. § 1321(i)(1) to recover its cleanup expenses. This provision of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) provided for dischargers to recover cleanup expenses if the spill was caused solely by an act of God, an act of war, the negligence of the government, or the acts of a third party. The FWPCA’s legislative history explained that the exception would not be available if the discharger bore any culpability. The United States argued that Total failed to exercise reasonable care for failing to bury the pipeline or move it above the high-water mark and that Total was culpable for continuing to pump oil through the pipeline during the flood. The American Petroleum Institute recommended that pipeline operators take environmental factors into account in building pipelines, develop contingency plans for pipeline shutdowns in natural disasters, and train employees in spill prevention. Both the United States and Total moved for summary judgment.