Critics Say Supreme Court Decision Protects Polluters

A Supreme Court ruling that favors a corporation accused of contaminating a North Carolina community has been met with outrage.

The 7-2 vote in the case of CTS Corp. v. Waldburger blocks a group of landowners in Asheville, N.C., from pursuing compensation for property and health damages allegedly caused by toxic chemicals released from a former CTS electronics plant.

The decision, critics say, could trigger profound and unjust environmental health consequences across the U.S. The ruling may indirectly eliminate recourse for veterans sickened by historically contaminated water at a North Carolina Marine Corps base, and the ruling may motivate corporations to cover up pollution events long enough to escape liability.

CTS shut down its Asheville plant and sold the property in 1987. Despite evidence of continuing chemical exposures in the community's air and water, a North Carolina statute cuts off a company's liability 10 years after its last contaminating act. So the deadline for filing claims came and went in 1997 -- years before Asheville residents were informed of the contamination, and before many got sick. (The residents' illnesses can't be definitively linked to the contamination.)

A federal law, however, sets a different clock, which starts ticking when a victim first learns of the contamination that likely caused his or her injury. The Supreme Court was tasked with interpreting legal terminology to determine which of the two clocks should set the deadline for a victim to legally file a claim. It chose the state statute.