White Hat v. Murrill

In a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a Louisiana criminal statute that identified pipelines as critical infrastructure, the federal district court for the Western District of Louisiana ruled that organizational and landowner plaintiffs lacked standing but allowed plaintiffs who had been arrested while protesting construction of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline to proceed with their claims. Although the court found that at least some of the organizational plaintiffs had alleged injury-in-fact with allegations that included specific examples of members being charged with misdemeanors or threatened while protesting near pipelines as well as allegations of the organizations’ involvement in organizing pipeline protests, the court concluded that none of the organizations or their members had alleged causation or redressability since the alleged injuries did not pertain to protest activities under the enforcement and prosecutorial authority of the remaining two defendants. With respect to the landowner plaintiffs, who had granted permission for the arrestee plaintiffs to protest on their property, the court found that neither the landowners’ allegations regarding their concern about environmental and health impacts in communities affected by the Bayou Bridge Pipeline and about threats posed by climate change nor their allegations that the law limited their use and enjoyment of their property satisfied the injury-in-fact standard. The court also ruled that the claims against the former sheriff of St. Martin Parish were not mooted by the fact that he no longer held the office; instead, since he was sued in his official capacity, his successor should be substituted. The court also concluded that the Younger abstention doctrine did not apply because there was no ongoing state proceeding in which the arrestee plaintiffs could challenge their prosecution.

Pipeline opponents, a journalist, landowners, community leaders, and environmental justice organizations filed a federal lawsuit challenging 2018 amendments to a Louisiana law that prohibits unauthorized entry of critical infrastructure. The complaint alleged that the amendments expanded the definition of critical infrastructure to include 125,000 miles of pipelines, which in many cases are not visible or clearly marked. The plaintiffs asserted that the law was unconstitutional on its face and as applied because it is unconstitutionally vague and allows for arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement, is overbroad, has a chilling effect on protected speech, and targets speech with a particular viewpoint for harsher punishment. They alleged that “the law’s vagueness, overbreadth, and unconstitutional aim are glaringly apparent in the felony arrests of pipeline opponents engaged in non-violent protest immediately after the law went into effect.”

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected constitutional challenges to Louisiana’s Infrastructure Trespass Statute, which criminalizes “unauthorized entry of a critical infrastructure.” The definition of “critical infrastructure” was amended in 2018 to include pipelines. The plaintiffs challenging the statute included individuals arrested in connection with protests of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline (“Arrested Plaintiffs”), “Landowner Plaintiffs” who opposed the pipeline and who allowed the protestors on their property, and individual and organizational “Advocacy Plaintiffs” who previously organized pipeline protests. The Fifth Circuit first affirmed the dismissal of the Louisiana Attorney General from the suit on sovereign immunity grounds and also affirmed the dismissal on standing grounds of the Advocacy Plaintiffs and Landowner Plaintiffs. In addition, the Fifth Circuit agreed with the district court’s determination that the Arrested Plaintiffs’ as-applied challenge to the Infrastructure Trespass Statute was moot because the statute of limitations for charges associated with the 2018 protests had expired. On the merits, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s rejection of the plaintiffs’ claims that the Infrastructure Trespass Statute was unconstitutionally vague or that it constituted an impermissible content-based restriction or was overbroad under the First Amendment. One judge dissented from the majority’s conclusion that the statute was not unconstitutionally vague.