In re: Louisiana Crawfish Producers arises out of the collision between two of Louisiana’s favored enterprises: crawfish and hydrocarbons.

Takeaways

There is lots of legalese, of interest primarily to lawyers who practice in federal court. So, we’ll start with a few things to remember:

• The mudbug, specifically Procambaras charkii, is Louisiana’s official state crustacean.
• Louisiana is the only state with an official crustacean.
• The court cited Wikipedia for the first two takeaways.
• The Wikipedia cite could have been a bit in jest. Federal courts are loath to rely on Wikipedia for anything important to the case because, according to the courts, it is inherently and admittedly unreliable, is written by volunteers from anywhere, and can be changed on a whim anytime.
• To be serious for a moment, in this dispute the tension between oil and gas operations and other competing and potentially incompatible land uses is displayed. This tension has always existed and is not going away.

The litigation

The crawfisherpersons sued a number of oil and gas companies claiming that dredging activities caused damage to fisheries in the Atchafalaya Basin (Non-natives: Impress your friends by reminding them the emphasis is on the “cha” not the “Atch”). The question was whether the complaints stated a cause of action for a maritime tort. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Florida Gas Transmission Company and Southern Natural Gas Company, finding no genuine issue of material fact as to whether the defendants’ activities constituted dredging.

Summary judgment affirmed

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment for Florida Gas. The company said all it did was place a pipeline into an existing canal, which is insufficient to support a maritime tort claim . The plaintiffs did not produce any evidence to create an issue of fact. A Corps of Engineers permit application and other circumstantial evidence was not enough to sustain plaintiffs’ burden to create a fact issue that dredging occurred.

Summary judgment reversed

The court reversed as to Southern Natural. A company representative testified in a deposition that they engaged in dredging activities in connection with spoil banks, and the company admitted in responses to requests for admission to using dredging vessels in the construction of a canal.

The problem was with the trial court’s denial of the plaintiffs’ motion to reconsider its original order. To understand why the Fifth Circuit reversed see the analysis of Federal Rule 59(e) addressing newly discovered evidence and who should be suffer when the judge is unaware of a revised scheduling order (spoiler: not a party; the district court should have considered evidence that was timely filed under the revised order). Worrisome for lawyers is why the district court had to be admonished over its refusal to consider the evidence on a motion to reconsider.

And of course, our musical interlude

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