United States v. Bestfoods, 524 U.S. 51, 23 (1998)

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Cite as: 524 U. S. 51 (1998)

Opinion of the Court

more to be known about Williams's activities. Indeed, even as the factual findings stand, the trial court offered little in the way of concrete detail for its conclusions about Williams's role in Ott II's environmental affairs, and the parties vigorously dispute the extent of Williams's involvement. Prudence thus counsels us to remand, on the theory of direct operation set out here, for reevaluation of Williams's role, and of the role of any other CPC agent who might be said to have had a part in operating the Muskegon facility.14

V

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded with instructions to return it to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

14 There are some passages in the District Court's opinion that might suggest that, without reference to Williams, some of Ott II's actions in operating the facility were in fact dictated by, and thus taken on behalf of, CPC. See, e. g., 777 F. Supp., at 561 ("CPC officials engaged in . . . missions to Ott II in which Ott II officials received instructions on how to improve and change"); id., at 559 ("CPC executives who were not Ott II board members also occasionally attended Ott II board meetings"). But nothing in the District Court's findings of fact, as written, even comes close to overcoming the presumption that Ott II officials made their decisions and performed their acts as agents of Ott II. Indeed, the finding that "Ott II corporate officers set the day-to-day operating policies for the company without any need to obtain formal approval from CPC," ibid., indicates just the opposite. Still, the Government is, of course, free on remand to point to any additional evidence, not cited by the District Court, that would tend to establish that Ott II's decisionmakers acted on specific orders from CPC.

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