(The Center Square) – Lawyers for Louisiana landowners are moving quickly to file oilfield contamination suits before a new state law takes effect that both sides say will make future legacy cases harder for plaintiffs to win.
Act 458, signed by Gov. Jeff Landry last year, overhauls Louisiana’s legacy-litigation framework, while the state’s Office of Conservation continues to oversee remediation under Act 312, the law that has governed oilfield site cleanup claims for years.
Leading the current push is Talbot, Carmouche and Marcello, the Baton Rouge firm behind a broad share of Louisiana’s legacy and coastal litigation. On its website, the firm tells prospective clients not to wait, warning that only suits filed before Sept. 1, 2027, will proceed under the current, more “landowner-friendly” version of Act 312. After that, the firm says, landowners lose the “low burden of proof,” the ability to seek full remediation through the courts and access to broader damages.
State records suggest the firm is finding clients. In roughly the past year, Talbot, Carmouche and Marcello has filed more than a dozen new inland legacy suits against oil and gas companies, according to a review of case filings. Many involve alleged contamination tied to historic oilfields rather than coastal erosion, and in some cases the claimed damage traces back decades, even more than a century.
The allegations are familiar: unlined pits, leaking wells, spills, abandoned equipment and contaminated soil or groundwater left behind by generations of oilfield activity. In one of the new cases, nearly 40 defendants are named.
The new inland suits are distinct from the separate coastal lawsuits now drawing national attention. Those coastal cases center on Louisiana’s State and Local Coastal Resources Management Act, or SLCRMA, while inland legacy cases typically rest on private property claims, old lease obligations, tort theories and Act 312’s cleanup process.
Talbot, Carmouche and Marcello did not respond to requests for comment.
Legacy litigation remains one of the energy sector’s most contested legal fronts in Louisiana. The same law firm won a $740 million verdict last year against Chevron in Plaquemines Parish, a coastal case now tied to the broader Chevron v. Plaquemines Parish fight that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.
Industry-backed critics say the latest string of filings was invited when lawmakers delayed the most consequential changes in the new law.
“By passing this law, and then delaying the implementation for 18 months, what it essentially says to the lawyers who are driving this litigation is it’s like a free pass to continue filing these very problematic lawsuits for another 18 months,” said Melissa Landry, director of the Pelican Center for Energy at the Pelican Institute for Public Policy.
She argued that both the inland legacy suits and the coastal litigation pose a threat to a state long tied to oil and gas production. She called the litigation campaign “equally problematic” and said it creates long-term uncertainty for companies that operated under the permits and standards in place at the time.
“What we’re seeing is a retroactive application of liability,” she said. “They had a permit to conduct operations. They carried out those activities under the terms of those permits. And it is only many, many decades later that there has been this attempt to go back in time and apply a new or different legal standard.”
That argument mirrors one advanced by oil-and-gas defendants in the coastal cases: that companies are being sued today for conduct they say was lawful when it occurred. Plaintiffs, meanwhile, argue that permits did not authorize contamination and do not erase obligations to restore damaged property.
Louisiana’s legacy site remediation program oversees the regulatory side of lawsuits involving environmental damage claims from oilfield operations, including the receipt of testing results, court orders and remediation plans.
A 2014 report, citing an Office of Conservation database, said only 12 of 137 properties with state-verified contamination had been cleaned up to state standards at that time. The state’s current legacy-program webpage lists active and completed legacy-remediation matters, but an updated statewide cleanup count was not immediately available.
Attorneys for major oil and gas companies had predicted this kind of rush even before the legislation passed. Mike Phillips, Chevron’s lead trial counsel in the Plaquemines case, previously told The Center Square that extending the transition period would only encourage more filings.
“This extended timeline incentivizes a last-minute rush of questionable legacy lawsuits, as plaintiffs’ attorneys are now encouraged to flood the courts with claims before the new reforms take effect,” Phillips said.
ConocoPhillips is a defendant in one of the new inland cases – the same company Landry recently said had reached a settlement with the state in a separate coastal lawsuit, though he did not disclose the amount. Landry has said the Act 312 changes would help end “the legacy litigation plaguing this state.”
The Grow Louisiana Coalition, which opposes the lawsuits, blasted the ConocoPhillips deal in a statement, calling it “a sad day when the state of Louisiana celebrates another ‘sue and settle’ deal against one of the largest energy producers in the world.”
Since the modern wave of legacy lawsuits took off after the 2003 Corbello decision, Louisiana’s inland and offshore rig count has dropped sharply. In March 2024, the state averaged just 44 total rigs, down from 154 in March 2003.
