This commentary was originally published by The Conversation. Reprinted under Creative Commons license BY-ND 4.0.
The question of which court should hear a case isn’t always as easy as it might seem — and the answer can sometimes make a difference in the potential outcome. For instance, in 2013, the government of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, decided to sue several oil companies for violating a 1978 state law that required a state permit for oil production along the Louisiana coast.
Some of that oil production activity dated back even further, to World War II. The oil companies, led by Chevron, fought the lawsuit in part by saying they were under a federal contract and following federal directives to boost oil production to support the war effort.
The case made its way to the Supreme Court over a question that was not about the substance of the case — whether the companies had or had not violated the state law — but rather whether the dispute should be heard in a Louisiana state court, or whether it should be heard in federal court. On April 17, 2026, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision making it easier for companies to move cases from state to federal courts. The ruling is likely to make it harder for the public to seek redress from companies they believe acted wrongly.
The question of state versus federal jurisdiction is a technical legal one, but for a scholar who studies local challenges to quasi-federal actions, I can report that the difference can be significant.
Common wisdom among attorneys is that state courts are more friendly to plaintiffs than federal courts are, since state trial juries are drawn from local pools, which are potentially more sympathetic to their own communities. But in fact, the distinction — and the prospect for any particular outcome — is not quite so clear because federal judges exert more control over jury selection than state judges do.
Plaintiffs’ attorneys may also be more familiar with local state court rules and procedures than they are with the mechanics of how federal courts operate — and some state courts may be more welcoming to plaintiffs’ claims of having been harmed, and therefore more likely to find that they have standing to file a lawsuit. And in some state courts, it is harder for a defendant to get a case quickly dismissed by a judge than is typical in federal court.
In the Plaquemines Parish case against Chevron, the oil companies argued that because some of their drilling activities were conducted as federal contractors during the war, they were acting as an agent of the federal government, so the case belonged in federal court.
Plaquemines Parish said the companies had significant control themselves over how they increased production and what they did to produce oil, and therefore the dispute was about the state law’s permitting requirements and should be heard in state court.
The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, sided with Chevron, saying the company had “plausibly alleged a close relationship between its challenged conduct and the performance of its federal duties – not a tenuous, remote, or peripheral” connection.
This opinion sets a precedent, which courts typically follow for future similar cases, that has the potential to broadly affect corporate behavior, especially in connection with government-related work.
For instance, the federal government is seeking private contractors to help with artificial intelligence services for the Department of Defense, operating Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities and potentially privatizing the Transportation Security Administration.
Anyone alleging harm from these practices — such as if generative AI systems or airport screening practices unfairly discriminate against some people, or the construction of a new ICE detention center damages a local waterway — would likely have to take the more significant and more demanding step of suing in federal court, rather than state court, to seek compensation or redress.
Showing 2,998 results
Steph Tai | May 7, 2026
The question of which court should hear a case isn’t always as easy as it might seem — and the answer can sometimes make a difference in the potential outcome. For instance, in 2013, the government of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, decided to sue several oil companies for violating a 1978 state law that required a state permit for oil production along the Louisiana coast.
Alejandro Camacho | May 5, 2026
The Trump administration recently repealed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2009 endangerment finding—the scientific and legal determination that greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare that has anchored federal climate regulation for nearly two decades. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin called the finding “the Holy Grail of federal regulatory overreach.” Within weeks, a coalition of more than 20 states filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reverse the repeal. The legal battle that follows will help define American environmental policy for a generation. Brigham Daniels and I did not plan the timing of our new book, Lessons for a Warming Planet: A Vital History of US Environmental Law, to coincide with this particular legal conflict. But we could not have chosen a more clarifying moment for its release. The endangerment finding repeal is not an aberration—it is a recognizable recurrence in a history that stretches back centuries. Law has always been the primary engine of both environmental exploitation and protection in the United States.
Bryan Dunning | May 4, 2026
On April 23, the Baltimore Sun published an op-ed lambasting efforts by localities and states to hold the fossil fuel industry responsible for decades of misinformation about the dangers of their products. These hazards to the public’s health, welfare, and safety are now coming home to roost in the form of extreme weather, increased flooding […]
James Goodwin | May 4, 2026
On April 24, The Washington Postpublished an op-ed that sought to blame an unusual source for the high energy and gas prices Americans are now facing: justice. Specifically, it claims that these price increases are the result of state and local governments trying to hold Big Oil accountable for the climate-related harms their constituents are continuing to suffer. I submitted a letter to the editor debunking the op-ed’s argument, noting that the real cause of higher gas prices is the illegal war in Iran.
Federico Holm | April 30, 2026
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is undergoing one of the most consequential and likely disruptive transformations in its 121-year history. The agency plans to relocate its headquarters from Washington, D.C., to Salt Lake City and overhaul its structure and management. According to a Forest Service press release from March 31, the overhaul aims to bring leadership “closer to the forests and communities they serve,” replacing the agency’s long-standing regional model with a state-based structure. At first glance, the rationale seems intuitive. Forest management should be informed by local conditions, local relationships, and decisions made closer to the ground. But that premise raises a more fundamental question: what happens when the scientific infrastructure that informs those decisions is dismantled at the same time?
Lemir Teron | April 29, 2026
As the release date of my forthcoming book, Unlearn Power: Strengthening Communities in the Age of Environmental Crisis, approaches, naturally, I've been asked, "What's the book about?" But given the amalgamation of ecological devastation across the planet, with fallout and stakes unevenly felt across socioeconomic lines and underscored by political forces that engage in climate denialism and assaults on democratic institutions, I urge that "Why Unlearn Power?" is the more apropos question.
James Goodwin | April 23, 2026
The pursuit of idiosyncratic grievances and obsession with exerting unconstrained power have been the hallmarks of President Trump’s second term so far. But it was only last week, during a pair of congressional hearings, that the American public received its first real introduction to the obscure administration official largely responsible for translating Trump’s worst impulses into action: Russell Vought.
Alejandro Camacho | April 22, 2026
The 56th Earth Day may also be the bleakest. Wave upon wave is crashing upon our system of ecological protections. But having spent years studying the full sweep of American environmental legal history, we can say with confidence: the bigger the wave, the stronger the undercurrent.
James Goodwin | April 22, 2026
On April 18, The New York Times dropped a bombshell with a story that offered a unique window into the political inner world of the U.S. Supreme Court. Based on a series of leaked memos, the story retraces the events leading up to the Court’s extraordinary decision to halt the enforcement of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, a rule to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector, even while the case was still pending in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.