Storage Tank Litigation

Storage tank cases often involve unique factual, technical, and legal issues, particularly in Pennsylvania where statutory presumptions and judicial interpretations of Pennsylvania's Storage Tank and Spill Prevention Act ("Tank Act") may be critical to your claims or defenses. We have handled numerous cases involving storage tanks in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including cases involving old abandoned tanks left behind decades earlier by prior owners, and tanks that have been improperly removed. Many of these cases involve complex groundwater hydrology or circumstances where several sources of contamination may be at issue. We have also been involved in tank litigation between successive property owners that turns on the interplay between contractual provisions and statutory definitions. We also frequently file claims on behalf of clients with Pennsylvania's Underground Storage Tank Indemnification Fund ("USTIF"). Our experience includes the following matters:

• We represented a client in one of the leading cases with a reported decision involving Pennsylvania's statutory presumption of liability under the Tank Act. Wack v. Farmland Industries, Inc., 744 A.2d 265 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1999).
• We represented a Fortune 100 client with maintenance facilities in New Jersey in two separate cases involving alleged contamination from storage tanks. One of these cases involved the retention of groundwater experts and a series of investigations of the numerous sites involved in the case. The other case involved gathering evidence of tank usage dating back to the 1950s and historical aerial photography.
• In Pennsylvania, we have recovered funds for current property owners from prior owners of sites where tanks associated with historical operations are at issue. In one such case, we recovered the full amount of the claim without filing suit and in another case reached a mutually acceptable determination of responsibility without filing suit.
• We represented a client in tank litigation who was not the owner of a tank, but was allegedly responsible for ancillary equipment that was claimed to have failed, resulting in a release. This representation was successfully resolved for the client years before the case concluded for many of the other parties.
• We successfully recovered cleanup costs against a prior property owner on behalf of a client who owned property where tanks had been in use nearly a century earlier and then abandoned.