Clarification: This version has been edited to clarify the differing roles of successive U.S. Fifth Circuit decisions reviewed, in effect, by the U.S. Supreme Court Friday.
The U.S. Supreme Court Friday decided that an environmental damages lawsuit in a Louisiana state court against oil and gas giant Chevron USA should rightly be removed to federal jurisdiction because of the company’s history as a vendor for petroleum products during World War II.
The 8-0 decision (Justice Samuel Alito did not participate) vacates a ruling by the U.S. Fifth Circuit — along with those of federal courts in both the Eastern and Western Districts of Louisiana — suggesting otherwise.
Written by Justice Clarence Thomas, Friday’s decision concluded that environmental damages caused during oil exploration in the 1940s occurred as part of a procurement commitment to the federal government, and as such is an issue that should be decided in federal court.
The Chevron suit was one of 42 such lawsuits against several oil companies brought in 2013 by Plaquemines Parish and other parishes regarding environmental damages wrought over decades by unpermitted or improperly permitted oil exploration and refinement along the Louisiana Coast.
The decision could have significant consequences for Houston-based Chevron and other oil companies involved in those lawsuits.
In April 2025, in a different but similar case involving Plaquemines Parish, a jury in a Louisiana court decided that Chevron owes Plaquemines Parish $740 million for local coastal environmental damage caused by Chevron and its corporate predecessors more than 70 years ago.
While Friday’s decision may not affect that particular jury verdict, it will likely be followed by moving this recent case and dozens of the other Louisiana lawsuits to the less-volatile environs of federal courts.
The challenge involved Chevron’s standing under the federal officer removal statute 28 U.S.C. §1442(a)(1), which allows lawsuits to be removed to federal court when they involve a civil lawsuit or criminal charge against a federal officer or “any person acting under that officer…for or relating to any act under color of such office.”
The federal officer removal statute was designed to preclude the use of state courts, whether civil or criminal, to interfere with the efforts of federal officials and agencies to do their legitimate jobs: collect taxes, build federal highways and enforce federal laws.
Under the Coastal Zone Act passed by Congress in 1972, states were encouraged to manage their own coastal environments through federally approved programs. Louisiana elected to do so by passing its own State and Local Coastal Resources Management Act (SCLRMA) in 1978. The state law created a permitting regime for any significant “use” of resources in Louisiana’s coastal zone and authorized state courts to impose liability and damages, and to order restoration measures for adjudicated violations of the act.
But there was a grandfather clause that allowed “uses legally commenced or established prior to the effective date of the coastal use permit program” to continue without such a permit if they did so legally before 1980.
The Louisiana parishes complained, nearly uniformly, that the various oil companies that had established the operations that proved damaging to the coastal environment did so without proper authority and were in violation of a variety of rules and standards established by the state in the early 1940s by the Louisiana Office of Conservation. When the oil companies tried to remove the cases to federal courts, the state asserted — and the federal courts uniformly agreed — that the individual disputes involved no questions of federal law.
The cases were returned to state courts, and the Fifth Circuit, in a 2-1 decision written by Judge Eugene Davis, in effect, affirmed their decisions, saying that the request was both untimely and involved no questions of federal law.
For Chevron and the other oil companies, the path to federal court had been provided by the parishes themselves in the form of an expert opinion intended to encompass the whole of the Louisiana-based lawsuits.
In April 2018, in response to a state court’s order that the parishes provide specific details of each company’s violation of SCLRMA, Plaquemines Parish submitted an expert report alleging that many of the environmentally harmful practices — especially those in the 1940s — had neither begun in good faith nor abided by industry practices deemed prudent at the time.
Chevron and the other oil companies, however, claimed that the expert study dubbed the “Rozel Report” was their first notice that the allegations against them stemmed primarily from exploration that had taken place during World War II, when many of them were refining aviation fuels (“avgas”) to support the war effort. As a result, they renewed their efforts to remove the cases to federal court, arguing that the companies were, in effect, acting in direct response to a wartime federal agency: the Petroleum Administration for War.
The oil companies argued that their work in service to PAW should be considered federally directed work. They asked the Fifth Circuit for a rehearing on two grounds: federal-officer jurisdiction and federal-question jurisdiction.
The appellate panel rejected the oil companies’ arguments. The broader court also rejected their request for an en banc hearing. And in an opinion submitted in August 2020, the appeals court affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded the cases back to the trial court for further review.
In a 2-1 decision, the Fifth Circuit reiterated the lower court contention that there were no questions of federal law involved in the cases, even with the “new evidence” claimed concerning the Rozel Report. There was not enough evidence that federal officials had directed the actual exploration and production of the oil that produced both the avgas and the environmental disruptions described in the Rozel Report.
In dissent, Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham noted that the crude oil produced by Chevron was “indispensable” to the production of the avgas, and thus quite necessary for Chevron’s obligations to the federal government.
Chevron returned to the Fifth Circuit in 2022 in a second similar case involving Chevron before a different appellate panel. That panel, in a per curiam decision, reiterated the court’s earlier decision — concluding that Chevron had acted as a “federal officer” but not for the specific tasks described by the Rozel Report. It was that second case that was decided by the Supreme Court Friday, but it was Oldham’s dissent from the earlier opinion cited specifically by Justice Thomas.
“Louisiana does not dispute that Chevron acted under a federal officer while engaged in avgas refining. But, because Chevron did not produce crude oil pursuant to a federal contract, Louisiana reasons that the suit is not against a defendant ‘acting under’ an officer,” wrote Justice Thomas.
“The Fifth Circuit erred in concluding at this stage that the suit against Chevron was not ‘for or relating to’ its performance of federal duties.”
Chevron was represented by Paul Clement of Clement & Murphy. Plaquemines Parish was represented by Louisiana Solicitor General J. Benjamin Aguiñaga and Victor Marcello of Talbot, Carmouche & Marcello in Baton Rouge.
The SCOTUS case is No. 24-813.