On April 30, 2025, the Los Angeles Court of Appeals affirmed the Los Angeles Superior Court’s decision granting a writ of mandate against the California Department of Toxic Substance Control (DTSC) on behalf of Sidley client Pacific Auto Recycling Center (PARC), which runs a metal shredding facility to recycle scrap metal.
This victory is part of a long-running saga in which DTSC has attempted to dramatically change the law governing scrap metal recycling without following the California Administrative Procedure Act (APA). For more than thirty years, DTSC and the industry had relied on a policy document (OPP #88-6) that was viewed as declarative of existing law. OPP #88-6 stated that scrap metal is not a waste subject to the state Hazardous Waste Control Law until recycling operations are exhausted. DTSC sought to rescind that policy and thereby extend jurisdiction over the scrap metal recycling operations themselves as the treatment of hazardous waste.
In affirming the lower court’s decision, the Court of Appeals determined that, even though OPP #88-6 was not itself promulgated under the APA, it was proper and the court’s discretion to order DTSC to reinstate OPP #88-6, so as to maintain the status quo pending an APA-compliant rulemaking. To hold otherwise would have allowed DTSC to drive its regulation of the scrap metal industry further underground by unilaterally changing its position in the face of PARC’s significant reliance on OPP #88-6. Reinstating OPP #88-6 pending a rulemaking avoids this arbitrary outcome and the disruption to industry and communities that would have followed. This victory also preserves the client’s ability to collect on the significant fee award issued by the trial court, with the fees currently subject to a separate appeal.
PARC is a longtime client of Maureen Gorsen (Century City). The multidisciplinary litigation team was comprised of individuals across Sidley’s Environmental, Regulatory Litigation, and Commercial Litigation and Disputes practice groups, including David Carpenter (Los Angeles), Simone Jones (Chicago/Washington, D.C.), Brooklyn Hildebrandt (Los Angeles), and Drew Langan (Washington, D.C.), with support from paralegal Amanda Gonzalez (Chicago) and legal secretaries Lillian Ruiz (Los Angeles) and Annie Yu (Los Angeles). Lauren De Lilly (Los Angeles), Celia Spalding (alumna, Los Angeles), Aaron Flyer (alumnus, Washington, D.C.), and Marissa Hernandez (Los Angeles) also worked on the matter in the trial court.
