SHEPARD, C.J.
The City of South Bend now owns much of the land where Studebaker Corp. once manufactured automobiles. It has sued Cooper Industries, LLC and others for environmental damage done to the site. In this appeal, the questions are whether the applicable statute of limitation bars these claims and whether appellant Cooper Industries is the corporate successor to Studebaker such that it may be liable on these environmental claims. We hold that the statute of limitation bars the City’s common law claims, that its claim under the Environmental Legal Action statute accrued at the time the statute became effective and thus is not barred, and that Cooper is the corporate successor to Studebaker for these purposes.
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Cooper Industries contends that our statute of limitation, Ind. Code § 34-11-2-7, bars the instant claims because South Bend did not commence its action within six years after it discovered “some ascertainable damage” to the former Studebaker property. (Appellant’s Br. at 12-13.) South Bend argues in reply that its common law tort claims are timely as to the property it purchased within six years from the date of commencing the action because a statute of limitation did not accrue until it purchased each parcel. (Appellees’ Br. at 28-29.) The trial court agreed with South Bend.
The general six-year statute of limitation applies to South Bend’s claims for negligence, trespass, and public and private nuisance. See Ind. Code § 34-11-2-7(3); cf., Pflanz v. Foster, 888 N.E.2d 756 (Ind. 2008) (applying a ten-year statute of limitation for a contribution action, rather than the six-year statute for property damage, because the statute of limitation did not begin to run until after the claimant was ordered to clean up the property). The parties dispute both when the action accrued and whether South Bend’s claims were timely filed in light of the accrual date.
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South Bend argues that its cause of action for damages to the Studebaker property did not accrue for limitation purposes until it became the owner of the property and had a right to commence the action, citing Gray v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 624 N.E.2d 49 (Ind. Ct. App. 1993), trans. denied. We cannot agree. Indiana adheres to the rule that “third parties are usually held accountable for the time running against their predecessors in interest.” Mack v. Am. Fletcher Nat. Bank and Trust Co., 510 N.E.2d 725, 734 (Ind. Ct. App. 1987). Accepting South Bend’s argument would have the practical effect of allowing the mere transfer of property to resurrect the claims of prior landowners and predecessors-in-interests who had actual knowledge of injuries to property. It seems much more likely that the General Assembly had the opposite in mind when enacting Ind. Code § 34-11-2-7.
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Cooper Industries contends that South Bend cannot bring an ELA claim because South Bend is not “the state or a private person.” (Appellant’s Br. at 43-44.) South Bend argues that it is a “person” as that term is used in the section authorizing an ELA claim. (Appellees’ Br. at 35-36.) The trial court agreed with South Bend.
This debate focuses on the first two sections of Ind. Code § 13-30-9. Standing in juxtaposition, they do provide something of a conundrum. When South Bend filed its case, § 1 of the ELA Chapter began by saying: “This chapter applies to actions brought by the state or a private person.” By contrast, § 2 said: “A person may bring an environmental legal action….” For most purposes of Indiana’s environmental laws, the Code defines “person” very comprehensively, certainly in a way that includes South Bend: “‘Person’… means… a city, … a town,… political subdivision,… or any other legal entity.” Ind. Code § 13-11-2-158(a). It does not define “private person.”
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If, as Cooper contends, cities like South Bend cannot bring ELA claims, it would mean that most nearly anyone but cities could purchase and rehabilitate contaminated land and consequently seek to recover remediation costs from the original contaminator. Cities, by contrast, would have to act solely at local taxpayer expense (though they could borrow money from the state to finance purchases and remediation). We cannot think of a reason why the 1997 brownfields scheme would have been crafted with this result in mind. In light of the overall objective of the 1997 bill and the apparent purpose of the ELA Chapter, we conclude that the term “private person” in Ind. Code § 13-30-9-1 should not be read any narrower than the more definite and generally applicable definition found in Ind. Code § 13-11-2-158(a). The trial court correctly held that South Bend could pursue an ELA claim.
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. . . If the ELA simply amends, for clarification or other purposes, pre-existing environmental claims, any change would apply strictly on a prospective basis. Cf. Bourbon Mini-Mart v. Gast Fuel and Serv., Inc., 783 N.E.2d 253, 262 (Ind. 2003) (because an amendment to the USTA expanded both “the class of corrective action for which owners and operators could seek recovery,” and “the class of third persons from whom recovery could be sought,” the statute as amended should be applied retroactively). On the other hand, if the ELA creates an entirely new action, no cause of action could have existed until its effective date. ELA seems to fall somewhere in the middle.
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. . . [A]t least some of South Bend’s claims could not have been brought before February 28, 1998. If the reverse were true and South Bend could have brought the substance of its claims before the end of an applicable statute of limitation but did not, the Shideler rule might bar the City’s recovery. In this case, however, South Bend did not have a complete cause of action until the ELA became effective. Therefore, the statute of limitation could not have begun to accrue until that date.
Cooper further asserts that the statute of limitation should have run against South Bend in accord with standard discovery rule principles – when it knew or should have known of the injury. (Appellant’s Br. at 13-17.) This misses a broader point about applying statutes of limitation: a statute does not run until a cause of action is complete. The discovery rule may tell us when there was sufficient knowledge about facts, but it does not apply at all to the completion of the underlying law to a cause of action, except to the extent that the law depends on the claim being factually complete. Indiana courts have held consistently that the discovery of a legal theory will not serve as the accrual date, but not that a cause of action can accrue before the law provided for such kind of claim.
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. . . Because South Bend filed this action March 19, 2003, it filed within even the shortest arguable limitation. Because we understand the ELA as addressing the issue of “brownfields,” that the legislature did not intend to bar cities from bringing these actions, and that the statute of limitation did not run until the cause existed, we hold that South Bend may proceed with its ELA claims.
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Because we conclude that the statute of limitation has run on all of South Bend’s tort claims, we reverse the judgment granted to the City as respects these claims. The trial court was correct that the ELA claim is timely, and that Cooper is the rightful corporate successor of Studebaker. On these points, we affirm the trial court’s order and remand for further proceedings on the merits of the ELA claim.
DICKSON, SULLIVAN, BOEHM, and RUCKER, JJ., concur.