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Cleaning Up Bankruptcy: Limiting The Dischargeability Of Environmental Cleanup Costs, Sonali P. Chitre

Sonali P Chitre

This article reconciles the joint aims of environmental and bankruptcy law after Judge Posner’s myopic opinion in the Seventh Circuit’s resolution of U.S. v. Apex Oil. These two areas of law represent alternative means to the same end—the equitable distribution of limited resources—and share equity’s traditional emphasis of function over form. Ignoring these principles, Judge Posner ruled in Apex that a cleanup order constitutes a dischargeable “claim” when styled as a legal judgment but not when styled as an equitable injunction. This despite the fact that in either case the liability amounts to the same thing-payment must be made for …