Abstract
The acid rain problem has become one of the major environmental issues of our day. Each new report on the subject is more disturbing than the last, documenting serious and often irreversible effects of acid rain on lakes and streams, fish and other aquatic life, forests, soils, buildings, and even human health. Present federal legislation is inadequate to deal with acid rain effectively. Proposed legislation could help ameliorate the problem, but even if adopted the effects of such proposals will not be felt until early in the next century. Furthermore, the current administration, particularly the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), has resisted all efforts to address the acid rain problem. A private action for damages caused by acid rain is an attractive short-term solution for individuals or classes of persons whose property or livelihoods are being threatened by acid rain. There are several obstacles, however, to the success of a private action for acid rain injury. This Comment addresses the principal obstacle, the traditional tort law requirement of proving causation in fact. Acid rain is the result of an aggregation of emissions from hundreds of major sources, transported great distances and chemically altered before being deposited. It is impossible to trace individual episodes of acid rain to the particular emission sources causing the problem or to apportion acid rain injuries among contributing polluters. To require a plaintiff in an acid rain suit to prove causation in fact would effectively bar such actions and allow polluters to continue shifting the costs of their business to innocent downwind parties.
First Page
117
Recommended Citation
Patrick J. Scully,
Proof of Causation in a Private Action for Acid Rain Damage,
36
Me. L. Rev.
117
(1984).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr/vol36/iss1/5