Chevron Lawsuit Seeks $2.6 Billion

A Plaquemines Parish jury began deliberations on April 3 after scorching closing arguments in a four-week trial that could result in Chevron paying $2.6 billion in damages to restore coastal wetlands.

The landmark case is being closely watched since it is the first to go to trial among 41 similar parish lawsuits against oil companies seeking to hold them to account for coastal damage. The verdict is likely to influence how other cases proceed, particularly involving potential settlement talks.

The plaintiff in the case, Plaquemines Parish and its attorney John Carmouche, alleges that Texaco skirted state law by failing to apply for coastal permits and not removing oil and gas infrastructure from its site when it stopped using an oil field in Breton Sound. The result, the parish argues: Massive coastal land loss and pollution that Carmouche argued can be directly linked to Texaco's oil and gas activity.

Chevron, which bought Texaco in 2001, and its attorneys, led by Mike Phillips, have said that the regulations in question went into effect in 1980 and were not intended to apply to oil and gas activity that began before that. The company doesn't deny that land loss has occurred in the area around the site of the oil field, but they maintain the oil and gas activity was not responsible for it.

The state also intervened on Plaquemines' behalf. Attorney Jimmy Faircloth represented Louisiana's attorney general and the Department of Energy and Natural Resources on Friday.

"It's been a long wait for this day," Carmouche said during his closing arguments before the jury on Thursday.

Indeed, the trial caps a 12-year-long legal saga.

Plaquemines first brought the lawsuit in Nov. 2013. Since then, the oil companies have repeatedly sought to move the lawsuits to federal court. Lawmakers introduced bills in Baton Rouge that would have killed the litigation. And Carmouche's law firm spent millions in political races to support candidates friendly to the lawsuits.

Finally, the trial began on March 11.

The 12 jurors have filed into Judge Michael Clement's courtroom in the 25th Judicial District Court in Pointe à la Hache nearly every day since. The courtroom itself is, appropriately, elevated two stories off the ground, tucked between levees near the end of the road on the Mississippi River's east bank. To the west of the courthouse is the river; to its east are the very wetlands at issue in the trial.

Now, the jury will decide whether to award damages to the parish to restore coastal wetlands in Breton Sound, and, if so, how much.

The parish, over the course of the trial, has argued that restoring the coast to its initial condition will require $2.6 billion, an eye-popping amount, even for a multinational like Chevron. The company brought in net profits of nearly $18 billion in 2024.

But Carmouche and Faircloth told the jury that is what the parish deserves from Chevron.

During his remarks, Faircloth slammed Phillips and Chevron for, in Faircloth's view, insinuating that the Louisiana coast was already lost.

"I thought to myself, 'My word, they're arguing that this isn't worth saving,'" he said. "This is a vain and useless attempt by a lot of people to save a community that's gone. ... The river's taking it, large hurricanes are killing it. There's no reason to do all this."

"The state of Louisiana rejects that," he added. "The state of Louisiana will not surrender the coast."

Phillips, in his own closing argument, said that the plaintiffs' request for damages was tied to a $2.3 billion plan to build land in the Breton Sound that did not have buy-in from the state's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. He suggested that if the jury awards damages, there was no guarantee they would be used to implement the plan. And even if the plan were implemented, Phillips said it's no good.

"No one knows about the plan. It only lives and exists in this court," Phillips said. "And yet, they'll come here and look at you in the eye and tell you that they have a $2.3 billion plan that you should pay for."

"Ladies and gentlemen, they're just going to cover everything with dirt," he added. "There is no ecological benefit to implementing the [parish's] plan."

Phillips also insisted that while land loss had occurred, it was due to climate change — driven sea level rise, hurricanes, and the levees along the Mississippi River, which have cut off sediment flows to coastal wetlands.

Damages awarded must be used for coastal restoration projects that comply with Louisiana's coastal master plan.

"It costs too much? For a company like Chevron, it costs too much? This marsh and Plaquemines Parish is not worth it?" Carmouche shot back, raising his voice as he addressed the jury during his rebuttal. "When the law says restore it to its original condition, let's go say it costs too much, and hope they bite."

"The parish proved to you what they did, proved to you that they destroyed this land," he said. "They act like it didn't exist, like — where'd it go? — it just disappeared."

As of press time, the jury was still deliberating. Judge Clement said during an intermission that he does not expect them to come to a verdict before court adjourns on Thursday afternoon. Jurors will reconvene on Friday morning to continue their deliberations.