Latest Case: The Parish of Plaquemines v. Chevron USA, Inc. (Civil Procedure)

Memorializing Miscarriages of Justice

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost, Associate Dean of the Faculty, and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College—describes the value of writing to memorialize miscarriages of justices and lauds federal district judge Carlton W. Reeves for doing so in a recent opinion. Sarat points out that Judge Reeves faithfully applied the doctrine of qualified immunity in the case before him while also powerfully noting in his opinion how dangerous that the police officer’s unjust stop detainment was for that Black motorist.

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The Parish of Plaquemines v. Chevron USA, Inc.

Dockets: 19-30492, 19-30829

Opinion Date: August 10, 2020

Judge: James C. Ho

Areas of Law: Civil Procedure

A group of Louisiana Parishes filed suit in state court seeking relief from various oil companies under the Louisiana State and Local Coastal Resources Management Act of 1978 (SLCRMA), alleging that the oil companies were liable for acts they committed during World War II. For a second time, the oil companies sought to remove all forty-two cases to federal court, contending that an expert report makes clear for the first time that they are being sued for activities they took during World War II while acting under the authority of a federal wartime agency and making the case removable under the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. 1442. The oil companies also contend that the report demonstrates that the Parishes' claims implicate federal question jurisdiction. Both the Eastern and Western Districts of Louisiana granted the Parishes' motion to remand the cases to state court. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, holding that the remand was appropriate because the companies filed their notices of removal too late. The court held that the information disclosed in the expert report did not provide new information previously unavailable to the companies, warranting removal. Rather, the report simply repeated information from a 1980 Louisiana Coastal Resources Program Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) that the Parishes filed before the oil companies' first removal attempt in 2013; the FEIS discusses many of the specific wells involved in this litigation by referring to their unique serial numbers; and those serial numbers refer to wells the companies drilled before or during World War II.