Under Indiana’s Environmental Legal Action statute, Ind. Code § 13-30-9-2, a party that has incurred costs to remove or remediate contamination resulting from a release of a hazardous substance is entitled to bring an environmental legal action (“ELA”) against any other party that caused or contributed to the release of the hazardous substance. Another statute, Ind. Code § 34-11-2-11.5 limits the recoverable costs in an ELA claim to those which were incurred no more than 10 years before the filing of the lawsuit to assert the ELA claim. Indiana courts have interpreted Ind. Code § 34-11-2-11.5 as establishing a rolling 10-year statute of limitations for ELA claims from the date of the most recently-incurred removal or remediation expense. See Elkhart Foundry & Mach. Co. v. City of Elkhart Redevelopment Comm'n for City of Elkhart, 112 N.E.3d 1123, 1126-28 (Ind. Ct. App. 2018). In other words, each time a potential ELA claimant incurs a cleanup cost, a new 10-year period of limitations begins to run. Id. (“the legislature did not intend for the ten-year limitation period to start running, once and for all, when the plaintiff incurs its ‘first’ cleanup cost. Rather, a new ten-year period starts to run with the incurrence of each additional cleanup cost.”).
Read more about Indiana’s Environmental Legal Action statute.
