SPSA Prevails in Lawsuit

Privately owned Holland Enterprises had filed a $20 million lawsuit against SPSA insisting that it could not enter the CDD disposal market without making certain findings with regard to whether the private sector was adequately providing such services. The company operates a private landfill. SPSA’s position has been that the plain language of the statute makes clear that the finding requirements are imposed only when setting up a refuse collection and disposal system, and are not required when offering various services as part of its existing system.

In his decision, Judge Rodham T. Delk, Jr. concluded that SPSA’s construction of the statute is correct: “I hold that the extension of SPSA’s waste disposal operation to include CDD waste was not a new system requiring the Section 15.2-5121 statutory findings. It was simply a new service.  SPSA was therefore free to institute the new service without making the Section 15.2-5121 findings.”

Gary Bryant, SPSA’s legal counsel, characterizes the ruling as “eliminating a burdensome hurdle that Holland Enterprises tried to erect in an attempt to avoid competing with SPSA.”