{"id":2769,"date":"2017-04-20T15:54:33","date_gmt":"2017-04-20T19:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?p=2769"},"modified":"2019-12-23T18:11:40","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T23:11:40","slug":"condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html","title":{"rendered":"Condominium Owner Spill Act Suit Dramatically Increases Potential for Litigation Over Environmental Investigation Costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New Jersey Appellate Division&#8217;s decision in Matejek v. Watson, issued on March 3, 2017, compelled the owners of condominium units to share in the cost of environmental investigation under the New Jersey Spill Compensation and Control Act (the Spill Act), without proving liability. This remedy, not previously available to private parties, will likely give rise to an increase in Spill Act litigation due to this advantage over the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Cleanup and Liability Act (CERCLA), which is the federal counterpoint to the Spill Act.<\/p>\n<p>The environmental contamination in Matejek v. Watson dates from 2006, when oil was discovered on the surface of a tributary to Royce Brook in Hillsborough. In response, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) removed underground storage tanks from each of five adjoining condominium units that were near the location of the tributary. Other than visiting the site a few months after the removal of the underground tanks in order to confirm the absence of oil in the tributary, the NJDEP took no further action and its file remained open, leaving, as the trial judge later found, a cloud on the title to all five units, given that the presence of the oil would have to be disclosed if any of the properties were to be sold.<\/p>\n<p>Seven years after the removal of the tanks, the owners of one of the impacted condominium units sued the owners of the other four units under the Spill Act, in order to require the owners of the impacted units to participate in and equally share in an investigation, and if necessary, remediation of the property. The Association was joined to the lawsuit in order to compel access to any portions of the common elements required for investigation, testing or remediation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html\"  title=\"Continue Reading Condominium Owner Spill Act Suit Dramatically Increases Potential for Litigation Over Environmental Investigation Costs\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New Jersey Appellate Division&#8217;s decision in Matejek v. Watson, issued on March 3, 2017, compelled the owners of condominium units to share in the cost of environmental investigation under the New Jersey Spill Compensation and Control Act (the Spill Act), without proving liability. This remedy, not previously available to private parties, will likely give [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[236,65,248,249],"tags":[],"coauthors":[168],"class_list":["post-2769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-width","category-insights","category-litigation-insights","category-real-estate-land-use-zoning-insights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Condominium Owner Spill Act Suit Dramatically Increases Potential for Litigation Over Environmental Investigation Costs &#8212; April 20, 2017 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The New Jersey Appellate Division&#039;s decision in Matejek v. Watson, issued on March 3, 2017, compelled the owners of condominium units to share in the cost\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Condominium Owner Spill Act Suit Dramatically Increases Potential for Litigation Over Environmental Investigation Costs &#8212; April 20, 2017 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The New Jersey Appellate Division&#039;s decision in Matejek v. Watson, issued on March 3, 2017, compelled the owners of condominium units to share in the cost\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-04-20T19:54:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-12-23T23:11:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Blake C. Width\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Blake C. Width\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Condominium Owner Spill Act Suit Dramatically Increases Potential for Litigation Over Environmental Investigation Costs &#8212; April 20, 2017 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","description":"The New Jersey Appellate Division's decision in Matejek v. Watson, issued on March 3, 2017, compelled the owners of condominium units to share in the cost","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Condominium Owner Spill Act Suit Dramatically Increases Potential for Litigation Over Environmental Investigation Costs &#8212; April 20, 2017 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","og_description":"The New Jersey Appellate Division's decision in Matejek v. Watson, issued on March 3, 2017, compelled the owners of condominium units to share in the cost","og_url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html","og_site_name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","article_published_time":"2017-04-20T19:54:33+00:00","article_modified_time":"2019-12-23T23:11:40+00:00","author":"Blake C. Width","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Blake C. Width","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html"},"author":{"name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/429b3bd6b52a7aa6eb9a0709bbb4d06f"},"headline":"Condominium Owner Spill Act Suit Dramatically Increases Potential for Litigation Over Environmental Investigation Costs","datePublished":"2017-04-20T19:54:33+00:00","dateModified":"2019-12-23T23:11:40+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html"},"wordCount":645,"articleSection":["Blake C. Width","Insights","Litigation","Real Estate, Land Use &amp; Zoning"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html","url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html","name":"Condominium Owner Spill Act Suit Dramatically Increases Potential for Litigation Over Environmental Investigation Costs &#8212; April 20, 2017 &#8212; Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#website"},"datePublished":"2017-04-20T19:54:33+00:00","dateModified":"2019-12-23T23:11:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/429b3bd6b52a7aa6eb9a0709bbb4d06f"},"description":"The New Jersey Appellate Division's decision in Matejek v. Watson, issued on March 3, 2017, compelled the owners of condominium units to share in the cost","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights\/condominium-owner-spill-act-suit-dramatically-increases-potential-litigation-environmental-investigation-costs.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Insights","item":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/insights"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Condominium Owner Spill Act Suit Dramatically Increases Potential for Litigation Over Environmental Investigation Costs"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/","name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C. Firm News &amp; Events","description":"Published by Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/#\/schema\/person\/429b3bd6b52a7aa6eb9a0709bbb4d06f","name":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C.","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a19d0fac94b8d3d657028926f65c841917c5f8f0dd3f23ad394e83f16c690e09?s=96&d=mm&r=g3f2ca7450f0195db092bccff4fb8982e","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a19d0fac94b8d3d657028926f65c841917c5f8f0dd3f23ad394e83f16c690e09?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a19d0fac94b8d3d657028926f65c841917c5f8f0dd3f23ad394e83f16c690e09?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook &amp; Cooper, P.C."},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.lindabury.com"]}]}},"yoast":{"focuskw":"","title":"","metadesc":"","linkdex":"","metakeywords":"","meta-robots-noindex":"","meta-robots-nofollow":"","meta-robots-adv":"","canonical":"","redirect":"","opengraph-title":"","opengraph-description":"","opengraph-image":"","twitter-title":"","twitter-description":"","twitter-image":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2770,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions\/2770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2769"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lindabury.com\/firm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}