Background
Waste Services of the Bluegrass, LLC operated the Central Kentucky Landfill, a 102-acre solid-waste facility near Sadieville in Scott County. The construction-and-demolition-debris portion stopped operating in 2016, and the municipal-solid-waste portion stopped accepting waste in 2022. Residents alleged that noxious odors from the landfill interfered with their use and enjoyment of nearby properties.
Odor complaints increased beginning in 2017 and continued until the landfill ceased operations in 2022. During that period, the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet’s Division for Air Quality conducted at least 104 inspections and found odors exceeding regulatory thresholds on 42 occasions, resulting in notices of violation. The Scott Circuit Court certified a liability-only class consisting generally of persons who owned or occupied property within four miles of the landfill between November 1, 2017, and March 31, 2022.
The Court’s Holding
The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the circuit court did not abuse its discretion in certifying the liability-only class. The geographic and temporal definition was administratively feasible and supported by citizen complaints and regulatory notices. At the certification stage, expert dispersion modeling was unnecessary because the record identified the landfill as the source of the odors and disclosed no comparable nearby emitter.
The court also upheld the findings of commonality, typicality, predominance, and superiority. Whether Waste Services’ operation of the landfill caused odors amounting to a nuisance could be resolved through generalized, defendant-focused proof under Kentucky’s objective nuisance standard. Differences in individual exposure and damages did not defeat certification because the class was limited to liability, and the circuit court retained authority to narrow the class, create subclasses, or revisit certification as the case developed.
The approximately five-and-a-half-year interval between the May 2019 complaint and the November 2024 certification motion did not require denial. The complaint was expressly filed as a class action, Waste Services had notice from the outset, and either side could have asked the circuit court to address certification earlier. The circuit court ruled on the motion in July 2025, approximately eight months after it was filed.
Key Takeaways
- A liability-only nuisance class may be certified when common evidence can resolve whether a single defendant’s operations caused an objectively substantial interference with nearby property use.
- Regulatory inspections, notices of violation, and resident complaints supplied an adequate evidentiary link between the four-mile class area and the alleged landfill odors without expert dispersion modeling.
- The delay at issue principally occurred before the plaintiffs moved for certification—not while the motion awaited decision—and did not establish an abuse of discretion where the defendant had notice of the class allegations and could have sought an earlier ruling.
Why It Matters
The opinion recognizes that odor-only nuisance claims may be suitable for class treatment when they concern one identifiable source and a common course of conduct. Property-specific differences may remain relevant to injury and damages, but they do not necessarily prevent a class-wide determination of liability.
The decision also underscores the flexibility of liability-only certification. Kentucky trial courts may use bifurcation, subclasses, amendments to the class definition, or later decertification to address individualized issues as the evidence develops.