On the Record

On the cover: With their progressive pilot potentially on the chopping block, the OPD’s Neighborhood Defenders in Park Heights are defending not only their clients but their problem-solving approach. Also, Caryn Tamber talks to University of Maryland law professor Danielle Citron about her research into online gender harassment and the law.

In the news: An EPA official says the agency wants more weapons in its arsenal; Maryland’s top court upholds a sex-abuse conviction based on the testimony of a 6-year-old victim; Mike’s Train House is sued for infringement; and an offshoot of the “driving while black” case will be the subject of a rare Court of Special Appeals en banc hearing.

 Also:

• Verdicts & Settlements features the case of an HIV-positive teacher who was fired from his job at a private elementary school in Arnold.

• Before there was “The Power of Nice” or his success as a sports agent, there was the Modern Bar Review Course. In My First/Business, Ron Shapiro reflects on the lessons learned from his initial foray into commerce.

• In Opinion/Commentary, Jack L.B. Gohn weighs in on the narrowing difference between blogs and journalism, while Edward J. Levin points out a key requirement under a Maryland deed of trust: naming an individual as the trustee. 

• Catch up with our Week in Review and the Law Digest, this week with cases from the Maryland Court of Appeals, Court of Special Appeals and the Office of Administrative Hearings.

Before two federal environmental lawyers talked about recent government victories during Friday’s ABA section meeting, Bruce Gelber discussed a recent government loss in the Supreme Court involving Superfund sites.

In May, the high court ruled Shell Oil Co. was not liable as a party that arranged to dispose of hazardous materials under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act at a contaminated California site.

Gelber, chief of the Justice Department’s Environmental Enforcement Section, said the ruling will not impact many other Superfund cases due to an “atypical fact pattern, including the contaminant not being waste or byproduct.”

“The rumor of CERCLA’s demise has been greatly exaggerated,” he said. 

 The high court also upheld a ruling that apportioned liability to another company connected to the groundwater contamination. Gelber said the government does not dispute the divisibility rule, only its application here.

The goverment will continue to resist divisibility in Superfund cases where it believes the harm is “not theoretically apportioned,” he said.

Gelber concluded with some advice for the private practice lawyers in the audience.

“Tell your clients to create a paper trail that shows you undertook some steps to show how dangerous it can be to handle your material,” he said.

An Exxon station in Northern Baltimore county closed last week because of an underground leak that apparently went unnoticed for several weeks. Exxon has taken full responsibility for the problem and has agreed to reimburse those affected by the leak.

Sound familiar? In fact, this Exxon station is located on Mount Carmel Road in Hereford (I-83, Exit 27). And the underground leak involved brine, a salty solution used to prevent the gasoline from freezing. The brine, which sits outside the gasoline tank, entered a regular, unleaded gasoline tank through a hole in the lining, according to news reports.

The contaminated gas has caused approximately 100 cars to shut down, local mechanics said. The mechanics have to empty the car’s gas tank and replace its fuel injector and pump.

Exxon has set up a 24-hour hotline for any people dealing with car problems from the station. The Maryland Department of the Environment, meanwhile, is looking into possible fines against Exxon for failing to report the leak; it learned of the problem from a citizen who saw the station’s gas pumps closed one day last week.

Both Exxon and MDE have said the leak did not spread into the environment.

Stephen Snyder was denied the billion-dollar verdict he had hoped for — the first of his career — but it’s hard to feel too sorry for him. His team estimates today’s total award in this lawsuit, stemming from a five-week, 26,000-gallon gasoline leak at a Jacksonville Exxon station, at $150 million.  (I may have missed one, but it’s at least the fifth verdict above $100M of Snyder’s career.)

Still, the jury rejected claims of fraudulent concealment, which means no punitive damages, which means no billion-dollar verdict. As a result, I’ve already heard a couple people refer to this as a loss. They figure Snyder set the bar at a billion, then failed to clear it. What do you think?

Photographer Eric Stocklin joined Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler on a boat tour of the Chester River yesterday, a body of water shared by Kent and Queen Anne’s County on the Eastern Shore.

The group was led by Tom Leigh of the Chester River Association, who presented findings on the health of the river.

A recent report by the state Dept. of Natural Resources on Maryland’s major tributaries identified five threats to water quality in the basin; the Chester River was rated “severely stressed” in four of them and “moderately stressed” in the fifth.

Gansler, you may know, has started a campaign (PDF) to look for ways to cut pollution in state waterways.

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Maryland’s “clean cars” plan to cut vehicle emissions might have some obstacles to overcome if a decision from the U.S. Environmental protection agency holds up. The EPA has decided that state efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars prevent a consistent national standard for automakers to follow.

But some state officials, including many here in Maryland, say the government has been too slow to act, so it’s up to states. This argument is quite popular on the Web.

So what do you say?

Is this an arena that can be effectively regulated by states? After all, the gases that enter the atmosphere can’t be trapped by political borders.

Or do you think a state can play an effective, if symbolic, role in setting an example for the wider population?

—ANDY ROSEN, Business Writer

The National Zoo is touting the use of environmentally-friendly LED lights in its holiday displays. “Zoolights,” which runs through Dec. 30, has “larger-than-life displays” of many of the Zoo’s popular critters.

And (wee!) sponsor Pepco “will educate visitors about simple practices they can adopt in their households to save energy.”

Have you used these LED lights on your home or Christmas tree? How do they look?

National Geographic says that if everyone replaced their conventional holiday light strings with LEDs, at least two billion kilowatt-hours of electricity could be saved in a month - enough to power 200,000 homes for a year.

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

Who wants to help support the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries?

A new poll suggests most people in Maryland do. Better than four in five of the 500 residents polled on behalf of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation said making the nation’s largest estuary cleaner should be a state funding priority, the group announced Thursday.

The results come as the foundation pushes for a new fee on hard surfaces to support a “green fund” to the tune of around $85 million per year. The money would help the state meet commitments it made with other states in the watershed to reduce pollution by 2010.

But it may be tougher to get businesses and large property owners to pay 1 cent per square foot of hard surfaces. Those who own big houses (more than 3,000 square feet) in the state would pay $40 per year into the green fund, while a warehouse owner could pay up to $5,500 per year.

One side says this is fairer than previous green fund plans that would tax new construction — and say the bay needs the money.

Others say it’s still to costly, especially for folks like food retailers — given other taxes that are on the table right now. What do you think?

-ANDY ROSEN, Business Writer

The utility that provides almost 2 million Marylanders with water is boycotting its bottled form.

The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission announced Monday that it will forgo giving away bottled water at community events, citing the impact on the environment. (For anyone unawares, most of the bottles stack up in landfills, contributing to already-overburdened trash stockpiles).

From the release:

“One of WSSC’s core values is environmental stewardship. Every day, an estimated 60 million plastic water bottles are thrown away. Most are not recycled. Millions upon millions are ending up in our landfills,” said Jim Neustadt, Director of Communications and Community Relations. “By ending our use of bottled water, hopefully we can inspire others to make a change.”

-JACKIE SAUTER, Multimedia Editor

A Crisfield seafood wholesaler, MeTompkin Bay Oyster Company, pled guilty last month to federal charges of purchasing and selling undersized crabs. The AP reports the company was hit with a $50,000 fine, and was ordered to hand over 3,200 dozen undersized crabs.

Being a regular consumer of Maryland’s most well-known crustacean, the revelation of undersized crabs on the market is no shock. Thinking back many summers, the size and meatiness of the Chesapeake Bay bottom-dwellers sold now doesn’t even compare to a bushel I would madly dig through as a 12-year-old hopped up on Old Bay. If anyone thinks I’m delusional from all the ingested phosphates and nitrates in the bay, feel free to set me straight.

The only good news out of this nefarious seafood scandal? The undersized crabs seized in the sting will be donated to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore for two North American river otters’ dining pleasure. Dinner time is today, in case anyone wants to watch and celebrate the one-time evidence disappearing.

—FRANCIS SMITH, Special Publications Assistant Editor