# Wilshire Westwood Associates v. Atlantic Richfield Corp.

> Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · August 7, 1989 · 881 F.2d 801

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8972153

## Case

- **Full name:** WILSHIRE WESTWOOD ASSOCIATES Platt Development Company v. ATLANTIC RICHFIELD CORPORATION Peter J. Ruddock John Crawford Thomas Crawford and Does 1 through 20
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
- **Decided:** August 7, 1989
- **Citations:** 881 F.2d 801; 1989 WL 87367
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Reinhardt
- **Judges:** Also, Authored, Coyle, Fully, Reinhardt, Scannlain
- **Cited by:** 14 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8972153

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that Congress may be deemed to have acquiesced in agency interpretations of which it is aware when it amends the statute in question

## Opinion text

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
I concur in the court’s opinion. I agree with the substance of the court’s treatment of CERCLA’S legislative history and the interpretation accorded that statute by the EPA, and write separately only to emphasize that we need not go beyond the language of the statute itself in order to reach our result. In my view, the language of CERCLA’S “petroleum exclusion,” contained in 42 U.S.C. § 9601 (14), plainly applies to gasoline, even when, as here, that gasoline contains lead additives. The court *811 correctly examines the “plain language” of the statute, ante at 803-805, and applies the elementary rule that we give the words of a statute their “ordinary, contemporary, common meaning,” unless doing so produces an absurd result, or one clearly contrary to the expressed intention of the statute’s drafters. Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42 , 100 S.Ct. 311, 314 , 62 L.Ed.2d 199 (1979); see also Pierce v. Underwood, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 2541, 2547 , 101 L.Ed.2d 490 (1988) (courts “turn first to the language and structure” of the relevant statute). In my view, the language of § 9601(14)’s petroleum exclusion flatly applies to gasoline, even if that gasoline may also contain a “hazardous substance” within the meaning of CERCLA (in this case, lead). To hold otherwise, as Wil-shire Westwood seeks to have us do, would require us to construe the words Congress chose in something other than their ordinary meaning. Inasmuch as Wilshire Westwood has failed to offer any persuasive justification for doing so — either in the legislative history of the section or in the general policies served by CERCLA— the court rightly refuses to depart from the ordinary construction of the statute’s words.
O’SCANNLAIN, Circuit Judge, concurs fully in the opinion authored for the court by Judge COYLE and also concurs in the special concurrence of Judge REINHARDT.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/8972153. Public record. Not legal advice.