Introduction
Arguments recently began for the 2025 U.S. Supreme Court term, with several blockbuster cases set to be argued in the coming months, including cases about Title IX and girls’ sports, the President’s tariff authority, and the Federal Election Commission and limitations on political expenditures. While those cases obviously have substantial importance for the nation, there is another case that should not escape the concerted attention of Supreme Court watchers: Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.
Plaquemines Parish is a removal jurisdiction case that arises from a Louisiana parish’s effort to impose liability on energy companies like Chevron and Exxon for crude oil production in the Louisiana coastal zone during World War II, amongst other things. It is part of a cohort of related Louisiana parish cases, one of which already delivered a judgment for $745 million, and others of which have resulted in pre-trial settlements.[1]
Plaquemines Parish will surely attract attention from commentators for the way it features energy production and the environment (and climate change) as well as the size of the monetary awards it already involves. But Plaquemines Parish has broader real-world implications than your standard removal jurisdiction case, and certainly broader potential implications than BP P.L.C. v. Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, the most notable removal jurisdiction case that the Court has heard in connection with climate change litigation of this sort.
The most obvious of these real-world implications, if the Court holds that this cohort of cases properly belong in federal court based on federal officer removal jurisdiction, would be the immediate wipe-out of the $745 million judgment, alone a huge consequence. But there is also a real possibility that the portfolio of related cases would founder conclusively in federal court under Fifth Circuit preemption precedent that speaks to the underlying statutory claims. And a loss on the merits at the Supreme Court could have knock-on implications for the overall woke lawfare strategy that has been building in state courts over the past decade or so.
Put simply, while the narrow issue in front of the Supreme Court in Plaquemines Parish is whether the underlying litigation properly belongs in state court or federal court, the case carries far greater implications than that basic question might initially appear to present and that means we should all be watching more closely than we might otherwise.
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[1] Jack Brook, Chevron ordered to pay more than $740 million to restore Louisiana coast in landmark trial, Associated Press (Apr. 4, 2025), https://apnews.com/article/chevron-louisiana-land-loss-lawsuit-oil-e02e2bdd56095e79c4d2bce60bf957c9 [perma.cc/D729-2NRX].