Brief Fact Summary. Plaintiffs sought to recover clean-up costs under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) from defendant corporations (Defendants).
Synopsis of Rule of Law. A complaint alleging environmental claims has a high specificity of pleading requirement.
Issue. Is there a high specificity requirement for environmental claims?
Held. Yes. Claims against individual Defendants will be dismissed unless Plaintiff files an amended complaint that pleads a factual basis for its claim. CERCLA involves many circumstances that has led courts to invoke higher standard of specificity in other contexts. Rule 9(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure recognizes an exception for allegations of fraud and mistake and applies a higher standard of particularity. This exception for fraud has been extended to a number of similar areas, for example, civil rights litigation. The trend toward requiring higher standards of particularity is due to the rising costs of litigation and the caseload crisis. The most widely accepted area of extension of Rule 9(b) is in the area of securities law. Therefore, since the consequences of individual liability for an environmental violation may be severe and due to the increased costs of litigation, the court extended specificity of pleading requirements to CERCLA cases.
As this court has frequently stated, § 11 of G. L. c. 93A was intended to refer to individuals acting in a business context in their dealings with other business persons and not to every commercial transaction whatsoever.
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