Supreme Court to hear appeal from Chevron in landmark Louisiana coastal damage lawsuits

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Supreme Court announced Monday it will hear an appeal from Chevron, Exxon and other oil and gas companies that lawsuits seeking compensation for coastal land loss and environmental degradation in Louisiana should be heard in federal court.

The companies are appealing a 2024 decision by a federal appeals court that kept the lawsuits in state courts, allowing them to move to trial after more than a decade in limbo.

A southeast Louisiana jury then ordered Chevron to pay upwards of $740 million to clean up damage to the state’s coastline. The verdict reached in April was the first of dozens of lawsuits filed in 2013 against leading oil and gas companies in Louisiana alleging they violated state environmental laws for decades.

While plaintiffs’ attorneys say the appeal encompasses at least 10 cases, Chevron disagrees and says the court’s ruling could have broader implications for additional lawsuits.

Chevron argues that because it and other companies began oil production and refining during World War II as a federal contractor, these cases should be heard in federal court, perceived to be friendlier to businesses.

But the plaintiffs’ attorneys — representing the Plaquemines and Jefferson Parish governments — say the appeal is the companies’ latest stall tactic to avoid accountability.

“It’s more delay, they’re going to fight till the end and we’re going to continue to fight as well,” said John Carmouche, a trial attorney in the Chevron case who is behind the other lawsuits. He noted that the companies’ appeal “doesn’t address the merits of the case.”

Chevron’s counsel, Paul Clement said in a statement that the company was “pleased” with the decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Exxon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The court’s decision to hear the appeal offers the chance for “fair and consistent application of the law” and will “help preserve legal stability for the industry that fuels America’s economy,” said Tommy Faucheux, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association, in an emailed statement.

In April, jurors in Plaquemines Parish — a sliver of land straddling the Mississippi River into the Gulf — found that energy giant Texaco, acquired by Chevron in 2001, had for decades violated Louisiana regulations governing coastal resources by failing to restore wetlands impacted by dredging canals, drilling wells and billions of gallons of wastewater dumped into the marsh.

“No company is big enough to ignore the law, no company is big enough to walk away scot-free,” Carmouche told jurors during closing arguments.

Louisiana’s coastal parishes have lost more than 2,000 square miles (5,180 square kilometers) of land over the past century, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, which has also identified oil and gas infrastructure as a significant cause. The state could lose another 3,000 square miles (7,770 square kilometers) in the coming decades, its coastal protection agency has warned.

Chevron’s attorneys had argued that land loss in Louisiana was caused by other factors and that the company should not be held liable for its actions prior to the enactment of a 1980 environmental law requiring companies to obtain permits and restore land they had used.

The fact that the lawsuits had been delayed for so long due to questions of jurisdiction was “bordering on absurd,” the late-federal judge Martin Leach-Cross Feldman remarked in 2022 during oral arguments in one of the lawsuits, according to court filings. He added: “Frankly, I think it’s kind of shameful.”

Louisiana’s Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, a longtime oil and gas industry supporter, nevertheless made the state a party to the lawsuits during his tenure as attorney general.

“Virtually every federal court has rejected Chevron’s attempt to avoid liability for knowingly and intentionally violating state law,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said in a statement. “I’ll fight Chevron in state or federal court—either way, they will not win.”

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.