The U.S. Supreme Court has put to rest a longstanding legal question affecting the deadline for plaintiffs to bring toxic tort and contamination claims stemming from certain contaminated sites. CTS Corp. v. Waldburger, No. 13-339 (June 9, 2014). Specifically, the Court considered whether Section 309 of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (commonly known as the Superfund law or CERCLA), which preempts a state “statute of limitations,” also preempts a state statute of repose. In a 7-2 decision, the Court held it does not, reversing a Fourth Circuit ruling and resolving a split in the lower courts. 

Section 309 of CERCLA contains an automatic discovery rule that trumps any conflicting state statute of limitation for “any action brought under State law for personal injury, or property damages, which are caused or contributed to by exposure to any hazardous substance, or pollutant or contaminant, released into the environment from a facility.” 42 U.S.C. § 9658. Under this rule, the state cause of action accrues, and the state statute of limitations begins to run, when the plaintiff “knew (or reasonably should have known)” that the personal injury or property damage was caused by pollution. Section 309 of CERCLA, however, only mentions “statutes of limitations.” It nowhere mentions statutes of repose. Unlike statutes of limitation, statutes of repose impose an absolute temporal limit on a party’s potential liability; whether the injury was discovered is irrelevant.

Waldburger leaves no doubt regarding the distinction between state statutes of limitation and repose going forward. Justice Kennedy reasoned that Congress only intended to supersede state authority where it clearly did so. The Court then found that that the text Congress enacted did not mention statutes of repose, while the legislative history suggested that term was deliberately excluded. The Court held that “[t]he result of respondents interpretation would be that statutes of repose would cease to serve any real function.”

The practical consequences of Waldburger may be limited as only a handful of states currently have relevant statutes of repose.