The parent company to a long-defunct railcar manufacturer is neither directly nor derivatively liable for toxic waste left on the grounds of its old manufacturing plant, a federal judge in Pittsburgh has ruled.
Ampco-Pittsburgh Corp. acquired the subsidiary—which had originally been called Greenville Steel Car Co. and is now a shell holding company known as Greenlease Holding Co.—as part of a larger deal in 1979. Six years later, Trinity Industries bought the manufacturing plant once used by Greenville and, 20 years after that, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection filed a criminal complaint against Trinity because the property was contaminated with iron, lead, trichloroethene, xylene and polychlorinated biphenyls, according to the opinion.
