Louisiana wetlands are said to be disappearing at an average rate of a football field every hour, so we are down an unconscionable number of gridirons just squabbling over who pays to mitigate the disaster.
In lawsuits that have been bouncing around between state and federal courts for almost a decade, affected parishes blame oil and gas company depredations. A federal court just ruled yet again that one such claim belongs in state court, and the same will almost certainly be true for the more than 40 similar cases that are pending. They were carefully drafted to avoid alleging violations of federal law.
Big Oil would have you believe that butter wouldn't melt in its mouth, and was eager to make its case in federal court, where the claimants' home-field advantage would have been more or less neutralized.
The case that has just been sent back to state court will now be heard by a judge elected and jurors chosen from a pool in Plaquemines Parish.
A federal trial would have been run by a judge appointed for life, with jurors from the Eastern District of Louisiana, which consists of Plaquemines and 12 other parishes.
It is inconceivable that in a state court the companies would not be held financially liable for the environmental destruction caused by dredging and later abandoning canals that crisscross the wetlands.
Tommy Faucheux, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association, however, claims that “the energy industry has lawfully and responsibly operated in Louisiana for decades, employing thousands, investing millions in our local communities and contributing billions to national, state and local economies.”
There is no shortage of local politicians who more or less accept that proposition and regard the avalanche of lawsuits against Big Oil as an ungrateful attack on a beneficent force. But independent and authoritative studies pin up to 60% of the wetlands loss on oil and gas companies, so the litigation will presumably end with judgments against them in the billions. No wonder they hanker for the more sympathetic environment of the federal system.
They claimed the litigation belonged there because they were drilling on behalf of Uncle Sam way back during World War II. That is one of those legal arguments that strike the layman as a major stretch, but it was enough to derail a trial that was taking place in a Plaquemines Parish court four years ago. Now the federal appeals court in New Orleans says we can resume it.
Faucheux thinks that the oil companies are hard done by as “our industry here in Louisiana continues to support our allies abroad,” while energy firms “continue to be attacked by these frivolous lawsuits.” They won't seem so frivolous once the damages are totted up.
It will be a long process, with suits filed against some 200 oil and gas companies in Plaquemines, Jefferson, Orleans, St. John the Baptist, Vermilion and Cameron parishes.
The oil companies and the parishes have fought so long over the proper venue for consideration of the lawsuits that it is safe to conclude that neither side expects them to be resolved purely on merit in state court.
The parishes are no doubt elated to be heading home, where the prospects of a bonanza, and a restoration of natural flood defenses destroyed in the quest for oil, are significantly enhanced.
Email James Gill at gill504nola@gmail.com.