Eagle Pipe and Supply, Inc. purchases property located in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana in 1988. The property was previously leased to Union Pipe, Inc., which operated a pipe yard where used oilfield pipe was cleaned and stored. In 2008, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality notifies Eagle Pipe that the property is contaminated with technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM), and orders Eagle Pipe to remediate the property. In July 2008 Eagle Pipe files suit against the former landowners, oil companies that had sold used equipment to Union Pipe, and trucking companies that had delivered the equipment to the property. Eagle Pipe alleges that during the cleaning process, radioactive scale fell from the tubing and contaminated the soil of the pipe yard. The oil company and trucking defendants file exceptions of no right of action and improper venue, and move to transfer on the basis of forum non conveniens. The trial court grants the peremptory exception of no right of action, finding that because Eagle Pipe acquired the property after the contamination had stopped, the claim is a personal right that belongs to the former owners (as opposed to a real right that follows the land), and the claim was not expressly assigned to Eagle Pipe. Held: Reversed. The court of appeal concludes that Eagle Pipe was injured when it paid full market value for the property because the contamination had not been discovered at the time of the sale.
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