In January, The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish, a case that could have wide-ranging implications, both for the dozens of lawsuits seeking billions in damages from oil companies for allegedly polluting Louisiana’s eroding coastline, and for the legal standards regarding removal to federal court in general.
On April 17, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal officer removal statute (which allows a person acting under a federal officer to move a case from state court to federal court) requires only a close and non-tenuous connection between the challenged conduct and the defendant’s federal duties for the statute to apply.
The majority opinion, authored by Justice Clarence Thomas, reversed the decision of the Fifth Circuit and will result in the $745 million judgment for Plaquemines Parish awarded in state court being vacated and the matter removed and retried in federal court.
Plaquemines (and other parishes), originally filed lawsuits in state court against oil and gas companies whose predecessors had produced crude oil along the Louisiana coast during World War II, seeking damages to restore the areas where the oil companies were operating. Chevron sought removal to federal court because two of its predecessors contracted with the federal government during World War II to produce aviation gasoline, known as “avgas,” which (among other things) required them to refine crude oil.
A divided three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit concluded that the companies could not show that the lawsuit was “for or relating to” its acts, as required by the federal officer removal statute, and determined that the case should remain in state court.
The Supreme Court, however, noted that “[t]he phrase ‘relating to’ sweeps broadly,” so that a defendant seeking to transfer his case from state court to federal court is not required to “show that his federal duties specifically required or strictly caused the challenged conduct.” The phrase’s “ordinary meaning” “is not ‘so broad that it is meaningless’” as it “requires a connection that is not ‘tenuous, remote, or peripheral.’”
Accordingly, Justice Thomas concluded that “Chevron’s case fits comfortably within” that range because the lawsuit “implicates acts by Chevron that are closely connected to the performance of its federal duties.” “Much of the crude oil that Chevron produced in” the oil field at the center of the dispute “was ultimately used for its own avgas refining.” Additionally, the parishes’ “suit will challenge Chevron’s actions that allowed it to increase its production of crude oil in” that field “during wartime.”
The ruling clarifies the plain meaning of “relating to” as used in the federal officer removal statue, and will likely result in removal of additional cases to federal court pursuant to the same language. How the present case plays out in federal court, however, remains to be seen.