RCRA Citizen Suits and State Courts: Jurisdictional Trap after Davis v. Sun Oil Company

Abstract

This article discusses the problems of splitting a cause of action between state and federal courts when both a RCRA citizen suit and common law claims could be made. The author addresses this issue through analyzing the history of Davis v. Sun Oil Company. The issue of whether or not there was concurrent federal and state court jurisdiction over RCRA citizen suits was never decided before Davis v. Sun Oil Company. The Sixth Circuit held that RCRA did not grant exclusive federal court jurisdiction. Davis lost the benefit of the federal statute and now any property owner seeking relief for environmental contamination on the property must be alert to the prohibition against splitting the cause of action. The Davis case leads to the conclusion that a landowner can no longer wait to bring a RCRA action in federal court in case the state court action fails to rectify the contamination problem.