WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - BP and Shell have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in a lawsuit by a Louisiana parish over coastal flooding, saying they can’t get a fair trial in a place where any jurors know they have the opportunity to pump billions of dollars into their troubled local economy by ruling against the oil companies.
In an application for an emergency stay, BP and Shell said each of the 4,000 residents of Cameron Parish “has a substantial personal and financial interest in rendering a verdict for their home parish.” Cameron Parish, represented by private lawyers working under contingency-fee contracts, claims 18 oil companies violated state law and caused land loss by digging canals and engaging in other drilling operations in delicate wetlands.
There’s no question the parish is under dire threat of flooding, the oil companies argue in their emergency brief to the U.S. Supreme Court. Potential jurors also know delivering a verdict against out-of-state oil companies would provide the funding needed to slow the destruction of coastal land, the oil companies said, citing comments by Gov. John Bel Edwards.
In May 2020 the governor told state legislators “we’re about to come to a monumental time where these cases are coming to an end and bring hundreds and billions of dollars to the state and thousands of jobs and local contractors get preference.”
“After telling Parish residents that this lawsuit empowers them to take control of their own destiny, the Parish’s counsel will ask those same residents, now sitting as jurors, to award damages on what they have publicly called `judgment day,’” the oil companies argue. “Every member of the small Cameron Parish venire has a personal and financial interest in the outcome of this case.”
The trial and appellate courts rejected the oil companies’ motions for change of venue. So did the Louisiana Supreme Court on Oct. 10, leaving no further options in state court.
“Unless this Court acts, applicants will suffer the irreparable injury of a patently tainted jury venire and a trial before an inherently partial decisionmaker,” they said in their filing with the U.S. Supreme Court. The argued the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution guarantees their right to an impartial jury and the parish wouldn’t suffer any harm by moving the trial somewhere else.
Cameron Parish is among a number of Louisiana municipalities that were recruited by private lawyers to sue the oil companies under the novel theory that their drilling activities, which were legally permitted and heavily supported by the state and federal government, caused coastal erosion. The U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform has criticized the litigation as short-sighted and likely to cause job losses, as the suits target one of Louisiana’s most important industries. The ILR owns Legal Newsline.
Cameron Parish is represented by lawyers at Talbot, Carmouch & Marcello and Mudd Bruchhaus & Keating. It is seeking $7 billion in damages, more than 350 times the parish’s annual revenue and $1.4 million per resident.