Monday, April 19, 2004 | 10:46 a.m.
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit, filed by Republic Services and its subsidiary Dumpco Inc., accusing three Las Vegas waste management companies of conspiring to illegally dump waste.
In the March 31 decision, U.S. District Court Judge Robert C. Jones granted a motion to dismiss the case filed by defendants Nevada Construction Clean Up Inc., Western Elite Inc. and Lunas Construction Inc.
Although Jones ruled against Republic Services, he allowed Republic a chance to amend its complaint.
Jones said Republic's case did not meet the requirements under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The judge said the lawsuit didn't specify a structure for decision-making in the alleged scheme and that the lawsuit didn't show any specific examples of mail and wire fraud. The decision also said Republic failed to show, "the commission of, or conspiracy to commit, at least two predicate acts."
Republic Services has an exclusive contract with Clark County, Las Vegas, North Las Vegas and Henderson to collect and dispose of solid waste for commercial and residential customers.
The scheme, as outlined in the suit, centered around two dump sites run by Nevada Construction Clean Up and Lunas and Western Elite's 40-acre site about 40 miles north of Las Vegas in Lincoln County. The complaint said the dumps were not properly built and maintained.
Donald Campbell, an attorney for Republic, declined to comment on the decision.
"We are currently working on that matter," he said.
Joel Hansen, an attorney for Western Elite, said his company is satisfied with the decision and that Republic's allegations were baseless.
"There is no RICO conspiracy. These are three independent businesses doing business legitimately. What they (Republic) are is a bully. They're trying to bully these little companies because they don't want anybody to compete with them. This is about a monopoly," Hansen said.
The July 29 complaint alleged that the companies conspired to illegally collect and dump solid waste in the guise of recycling while performing "virtually no recycling services," in violation of local, state, and federal laws. In doing so, the complaint alleges the companies defrauded Republic, Clark County, the Clark County Board of Health and the public at large, as well as put the public's health at risk.
The complaint also alleged mail and wire fraud and sought injunctions to stop the companies from their practices, as well as unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
This isn't the only lawsuit involving these three companies.
Nevada Construction Clean Up and Western Elite have a pending federal lawsuit against Republic, the Clark County Board of Health and the Clark County Commission alleging Republic has a monopoly on the waste recycling market.
In a May 2002 response in court, Republic defended its "contractual right to be the sole hauler of all solid waste material." It also accused the two recyclers of wrongfully generating revenue from activities they "freely admit and acknowledged" as being illegal and in violation of Republic's franchise agreement with local governments in Southern Nevada.
Also, Western Elite's Lincoln County dump was raided earlier this month by officials of the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection to enforce a court agreement made in 2001 in which the company agreed to comply with environmental laws.
Officials filed a lawsuit in Lincoln County on Friday to enforce the consent agreement.
Environmental officials alleged Western Elite's dump had accumulated excess waste materials and had not kept the materials in discrete areas. The company was also accused of not keeping proper records and was operating a landfill without a permit.
In the agreement the company agreed to comply with environmental laws on operations, Allen Biaggi, administrator of the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection, said.
"What our motion does is it asks the court to enforce that agreement in terms of the amount of waste being stored at the site, the way its operating and how much waste they're taking in on a daily basis," Biaggi said.
He said the company agreed to keep 270,000 cubic yards of material at the site but that the company admitted to keeping over 1 million cubic yards of waste materials.
"Our position is that any reasonable person driving by this site can tell that this is not a properly-run operation. It is literally a mountain of waste material along the highway (U.S. 93)," Biaggi said.
Hansen said the company is making efforts to clean up its site and is developing a recycling system. He said that the company has had tests done on the soil and the surrounding water and that neither are being contaminated by the company's waste.
"What Western Elite does is accept a fairly clean (mixture of) construction debris, which consists of wood, left over two-by-fours (boards) and other mixtures of construction debris," Hansen said.
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