Abstract
This Comment explores how businesses exploit variability in state corporate law to evade liability for hazardous waste pollution. In particular, it examines the tension between the successor liability doctrine and environmental accountability under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). While CERCLA purports to hold polluters responsible for site cleanup under a broad liability scheme, some states have effectively—through limiting statutes and rigid judicial interpretation—allowed businesses to retain control of environmental assets while casting off associated liabilities. This trend is particularly concerning because most jurisdictions apply state law, as opposed to a uniform federal rule, when considering successor liability under CERCLA. Further, evidence suggests that some businesses with toxic environmental assets are reincorporating to take advantage of favorable state law regimes. This Comment therefore contends that state corporate law does not sufficiently prevent polluting businesses from “dying paper deaths, only to rise phoenix-like from the ashes, transformed, but free of their former liabilities.” Rather, a unified federal framework is necessary to ensure corporate accountability and support CERCLA’s objective to protect human health and the environment.
Recommended Citation
Hannah R. Behar,
A Haven for Polluters: Examining CERCLA Successor Liability Under State Law,
75
Emory L. J.
135
(2025).
Available at:
https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/elj/vol75/iss1/3