The Supreme Court refused to halt this month’s trial in Louisiana against BP America and other oil companies for upward of $7 billion in compensation for coastal erosion that local authorities allege has been exacerbated by the corporations’ actions.
Several parishes in the Pelican State are suing oil companies over coastal damage. They claim, among other things, that the companies dug channels through wetlands during their energy production efforts, which they argue have accelerated coastal land loss. The companies deny any wrongdoing.
BP America Production Co., Shell Oil Co., and Hilcorp Energy Co. had asked the nation’s highest court to pause the start of the trial in the state court while the companies seek a review of a decision denying a proposed change of venue to another jurisdiction. The companies say they can’t receive a fair trial in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, because any awards ordered against them would go to the local government and that all parish residents who might serve on a jury are inherently biased against the companies because they have a personal interest in the outcome of the trial.
The companies have also filed a petition for certiorari, or review, in the case with the Supreme Court. The court hasn’t yet acted on the petition and it’s unclear when it will do so. In order for it to be granted and for the case to advance to the oral argument stage, at least four of the nine justices have to vote for the petition.
Located in southwestern Louisiana, Cameron Parish has a population of about 5,000, and annual tax revenue in the neighborhood of $20 million. It’s one of 20 of the state’s 64 parishes that are located in the coastal zone. The parish wants to spend any damages it recovers from the companies on land restoration and storm protection projects.
Cameron Parish filed its lawsuit in 2016 under Louisiana’s State and Local Coastal Resources Management Act (SLCRMA) of 1978.
There is also a federal Coastal Zone Management Act that aims to encourage coastal states to use their authority over land use to further the national interest in comprehensive coastal management. The federal statute “allows states with approved coastal programs a large measure of control over federal land use, and over private land use subject to federal permitting,” according to the parish’s brief.
Louisiana’s coastal management program, which includes the SLCRMA and its implementing regulations, was federally approved in 1980. The SLCRMA allows state and local officials to seek court injunctions “to ensure that no uses are made of the coastal zone for which a coastal use permit has not been issued when required or which are not in accordance with the terms and conditions of a coastal use permit.”
The state statute provides that any action filed under it, “whether criminal or civil, must be brought in any parish” in which the activity complained of is situated.
The parish has argued that the companies’ claims of potential juror bias is far-fetched.
“There is no evidence in the record that Cameron Parish residents are biased against Applicants on account of their personal, financial or other interests in the outcome of this case.”
The companies “attempted to demonstrate bias by offering a hodgepodge of published statements of politicians, lawyers, teachers, and government officials, statements of some residents, out-of-context statements of Plaintiff’s counsel, and even evidence of eighth grade and high school projects.”
The requested stay was necessary to preserve the companies’ “basic constitutional rights,” which they say are being jeopardized by the state court’s refusal to change the venue.
“This unprecedented situation threatens the clearly established federal due-process rights of these defendants to have their case adjudicated by a neutral, disinterested decisionmaker. Indeed, this Court long has held that ‘the Due Process Clause has been implemented by objective standards that do not require proof of actual bias,’” the application stated, citing the court’s 2009 ruling in Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.
BP attorney David Frederick of Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel, and Frederick in Washington, and Cameron Parish attorney Victor Marcello of Talbot, Carmouche, and Marcello in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
