⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

We hear oral argument before a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Plaquemines Parish versus Chevron USA and others. The case arises from a Louisiana coastal-erosion lawsuit locked in a twelve-year battle over whether it belongs in state or federal court. The plaintiffs, a Louisiana parish and the state itself, allege that oil and gas companies damaged coastal wetlands through their operations. The defendants removed the case to federal court under the federal-officer-removal statute, claiming their wartime refining and production activities were conducted at the direction of the federal government. The district court remanded the case to state court in May 2023, and the defendants appealed. They also asked this court to stay the state proceedings while the appeal was heard; a motions panel declined. The state case went to a full jury trial, resulting in a verdict of roughly seven hundred forty-five million dollars against the defendants. That verdict has not yet been converted to a final judgment. In the interim, the Supreme Court decided a companion case and reversed this circuit's prior understanding of the removal statute's relating-to prong. The defendants argue the remand order should be vacated outright, and that vacatur would restore federal jurisdiction as if the case had never left. The plaintiffs argue that at most the case should return to the district court to apply the Supreme Court's new decision in the first instance; that vacating the remand would not erase what the state court has done; and that the trial happened only because the defendants failed to win a stay. The question before the panel is which of those paths to take.

Plaquemines Parish v. Chevron USA (No. 23-30336) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, argued August 5, 2026.