The Supreme Court unanimously sided with Chevron and a group of oil companies on Friday in their bid to move a lawsuit seeking damages for coastline damage caused by oil production in Louisiana to federal court, away from state courts, which had been an unfavorable venue for the companies.
The justices ruled 8-0 in favor of the oil companies, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing the majority opinion. Thomas wrote that the actions Chevron was being sued for implicated work it did for the federal government in fuel production during World War II and therefore should be moved from state court into federal court.
“In this all-hands-on-deck, wartime context, Chevron needed to produce more crude oil as
quickly as possible to facilitate more avgas refining, including its own,” Thomas wrote, ordering the case be moved to federal court. “Chevron has therefore satisfied the ‘relating to’ requirement. This suit implicates acts by Chevron that are closely connected to the performance of its federal duties.”
Thomas’s majority opinion in Chevron USA v. Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson penned her own opinion concurring in judgment.
Jackson’s opinion explained that she agreed the oil companies proved their case should be moved to federal court, but believed that the standard for moving a lawsuit to a federal court requires more than an “indirect relationship between the conduct targeted by the lawsuit and the asserted federal duties.”
The ruling means Chevron’s case will continue in federal court, and it puts into question a $745 million judgment a jury reached against the oil companies in state court. Chevron celebrated the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday, saying it looks forward to advancing the case in federal court.
“Chevron applauds the Supreme Court’s unanimous judgment recognizing that these lawsuits belong in federal court. As the Court recognized, the plaintiffs’ claims are related to activities that Chevron and other energy companies performed under federal supervision during World War II,” Bill Turenne, a Chevron spokesperson, said. “Those claims are flawed as a matter of both state law and federal law, and Chevron looks forward to litigating these cases in federal court, where they belong.”
Justice Samuel Alito recused himself from the case ahead of January’s oral arguments. He cited a financial interest in ConocoPhillips, the parent corporation of Burlington Resources Oil and Gas Company, which remained a party at the district court level despite having previously said it had withdrawn from the case at the Supreme Court, as the reason he did not participate in the case.
The ruling marks a key victory for oil companies in their bid to stave off climate change lawsuits filed by activists against them seeking damages for their operations. The Supreme Court will hear a major case in its next term, which is set to have sweeping ramifications for climate change lawsuits.
SUPREME COURT WEIGHS LOUISIANA RESIDENTS’ FIGHT TO MAKE OIL COMPANIES PAY FOR COASTAL DAMAGES
With Suncor Energy v. County Commissioners of Boulder County, the justices will examine a case in which local officials have sued oil companies over their alleged role in global climate change, seeking damages for their residents. The outcome of the case is expected to either shut down the avalanche of climate change lawsuits across the country in various state and local courts, or allow them to persist. The justices will hear arguments for the case as early as October.
The Supreme Court’s current term is expected to conclude by the end of June, when it releases its final opinions in all outstanding cases. The justices have yet to release opinions in major cases ranging from banning biological men in women’s sports to birthright citizenship and race-based redistricting.