The Royal McBee Corporation manufactured typewriters at a factory in Springfield, Missouri. As a part of the manufacturing process, Royal McBee generated cyanide based electroplating wastes, sludge from the bottom of electroplating tanks, and spent plating bath solution. As a part of their duties, Royal McBee employees dumped the wastes onto the surface of the soil on a vacant lot adjoining the factory. This took place between 1959 and 1962. Over time, the waste materials migrated outward and downward from the original dumping site, contaminating a large area. In 1970, the manufacturing facility and lot were sold to General Electric, which operated the plant but did not engage in any dumping of wastes on the vacant lot. 

In the mid-1980s, General Electric was required by the EPA and the state of Missouri, under the authority of the federal Superfund law, to clean up the contamination at the site. General Electric then brought a lawsuit against the successor corporation of Royal McBee’s typewriter business, Litton Business Systems, to recover for the costs it incurred in cleaning up the site. Under the Superfund law, “any person who at the time of disposal of any hazardous substance owned or operated any facilities at which such hazardous substances were disposed of, shall be liable for any other necessary costs of response incurred by any other person” consistent with the Superfund law and regulations. Is General Electric entitled to recover its cleanup costs from Litton?