In the 1980s and 1990s, Bernson was "the major foe" of a controversial proposed enlargement of a landfill project, or dump, in Sunshine Canyon in Granada Hills, at the eastern end of the Santa Susana Mountains. In 1992 he sued Browning-Ferris Industries, operator of the landfill, for libel, alleging that the company "leaked to news reporters a dossier containing false claims about Bernson's spending of public and private funds on travel" (above) in an attempt to discredit him. A Superior Court judge dismissed the action, but the State Supreme Court reinstated it in June 1994, ruling 4–2 that " the usual one-year time limit for filing libel lawsuits can be extended when defendants accused of disseminating allegedly defamatory material intentionally conceal their identities."