The Supreme Court ruled 8-0 Friday that Chevron won the right to move long-running Louisiana environmental lawsuits from state court to federal court, delivering a significant procedural victory for the energy industry that could influence where similar climate-related cases are fought nationwide.
Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for the majority, said Chevron satisfied the legal standard for transferring the cases because the conduct being challenged was meaningfully connected to work the company performed for the federal government during World War II, including crude oil production and refining tied to the wartime effort.
The decision overturned an earlier ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which had agreed with a lower court that the case should remain in Louisiana state court. The dispute now returns to the lower court for further review, placing a $744 million jury verdict against Chevron in doubt.
The lawsuits were filed by Plaquemines Parish and Cameron Parish, which claim decades of drilling activity contributed to coastal erosion and other environmental damage. Dozens of similar lawsuits have been filed across Louisiana since 2013, seeking billions of dollars in damages from oil and gas companies, according to Fox News.
Last April, a Louisiana jury found that Chevron was liable for hundreds of millions in alleged damages. The lawsuits accuse Chevron and other oil and gas companies of failing to comply with Louisiana law requiring operators to clean, detoxify, and restore drilling sites, alleging violations of the State and Local Coastal Resources Management Act.
Chevron, supported by the Trump administration, argued that the cases belong in federal court because some of its Louisiana oil production was connected to its World War II role refining crude oil into aviation fuel for the U.S. military, Fox noted further.
The Supreme Court agreed. Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said Congress has long permitted federal contractors and others “acting under” federal authority to move lawsuits into federal court when the claims are tied to that work. “Chevron’s case fits comfortably within the ordinary meaning of a suit ‘relating to’ the performance of federal duties,” Thomas wrote last week.
The high court’s ruling lowers the threshold for companies seeking to move cases from state to federal court, a venue many defendants consider more favorable. The justices said removal is appropriate when claims have a “meaningful connection” to federal work and are not merely “tenuous, remote, or peripheral” to that activity.
The Supreme Court also set aside an earlier decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which had agreed with a lower court that the dispute should remain in state court, and sent the case back for further review.
“The outcome marks a significant procedural win for Chevron. It also stands to have broader knock-down effects for other oil and gas majors facing similar environmental and climate-related lawsuits,” Fox reported.
Last week, a federal appeals court upheld a Texas law that says public school classrooms must have displays of the Ten Commandments. This could lead to a case in the U.S. Supreme Court about the role of religion in public education.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld Senate Bill 10 this week. This bill says that all public schools in the state “shall” put up the Ten Commandments in classrooms. People who are against the law said they will take the case to the highest court in the country. Rav Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District is the name of the case.
David Hacker, vice president of legal services and senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, told The Center Square that the decision means schools must follow the law’s requirement. Hacker added that the Ten Commandments can teach us things.