Shell Offshore Inc. v. Greenpeace, Inc.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Greenpeace, Inc.’s (Greenpeace’s) appeal of a preliminary injunction obtained by Shell Offshore Inc. and Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc. (together, Shell) to stop Greenpeace protesters from impeding Shell’s oil exploration activities off the Alaskan coast was moot. The Ninth Circuit noted that the preliminary injunction granted by the federal district court for the District of Alaska had expired in November 2015 and that Shell had not sought to renew it. The court was not persuaded by Greenpeace’s argument that preliminary civil contempt sanctions against Greenpeace rescued the appeal from mootness. The Ninth Circuit said that the sanctions imposed by the district court—which imposed escalating fines on Greenpeace while its protesters blocked a Shell vessel from leaving port—were coercive, not compensatory, and therefore did not survive the termination of the underlying injunction. The Ninth Circuit vacated the pending contempt proceedings in the district court and remanded the action to the district court for consideration of whether Shell had established that it suffered compensable injuries due to Greenpeace’s protest campaign.