Getting it Right: How the Iowa Supreme Court Correctly Made Room for Common Law State Torts in Clean Air Act Litigation

Abstract

For centuries, common law torts have provided citizens with a reliable avenue to redress environmental harm. Whether such harm presented itself through water, air, or waste pollution, citizens have long been empowered to seek remedies in state courts, alleging most commonly nuisance, negligence, or trespass. However, recent expansion of federal oversight and regulation in the area of environmental law has compelled courts to consider whether these state common law torts have now been preempted by federal legislation.In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court decision American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut held that the Clean Air Act, which essentially regulates the nation’s air pollution, displaces all federal common law claims seeking relief against air polluters. The Court did not hold whether state common law claims were also preempted by the Clean Air Act, and instead, the Court expressly left the question undecided. Predictably, several lower federal courts have since confronted the question of whether state common law claims are preempted by the Clean Air Act. Although these courts have generally held that the Clean Air Act does not preempt all state common law claims, they have not been unanimous. In June of 2014, the Iowa Supreme Court became one of the first state supreme courts to address this issue in Freeman v. Grain Processing Corporation. In a unanimous decision, the Iowa court held that the plaintiffs’ common law tort claims against a local corn wet milling facility were not preempted by the Clean Air Act or its state law corollary. This Note contends that the Iowa Supreme Court’s preemption analysis was consistent with U.S. Supreme Court principles, and accordingly, that Freeman was correctly decided. The court’s decision reached the correct result for three reasons. First, the court recognized the conceptual and remedial differences between private tort actions and public environmental regulation. Second, the court gave full meaning to the structural framework and statutory language of the Clean Air Act. Third, the Iowa court properly relied on U.S. Supreme Court precedent interpreting the Clean Water Act to interpret the similar Clean Air Act.Freeman now allows Iowa citizens to redress actual harm caused by environmental air pollution through tort instead of relying on an overarching, bureaucratic regulatory system. Whether or not a citizen can actually demonstrate environmental harm — and collect damages from environmental polluters — was beyond the scope of the Freeman decision. As to the threshold question of whether common law claims can even coexist in an immense regulatory framework such as the Clean Air Act, Freeman v. Grain Processing Corporation correctly reaffirmed the role of common law torts in an age of environmental statutory regulation and determined that the Clean Air Act makes room for these state common law claims.