The Supreme Court is set to hear a dispute brought by North Dakota landowners that could shape what property owners nationwide receive when pipeline companies seize private land under eminent domain.
The broader issue is whether a payment can be called "just" when families must first spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtain it.
What happened?
In 2018, North Dakota rancher Leonard Hoffmann and his neighbors learned that WBI Energy Transmission intended to take their land. WBI is a private gas pipeline company, but a certificate of public convenience gave it the eminent domain authority to do so.
But according to the Institute for Justice, the group representing the plaintiffs, the company's opening offer was about half of market value.
The landowners subsequently sued, and the case later settled after a judge ruled they could introduce evidence about the property's fair market value, according to Reason. The district court also ordered WBI to pay about $383,375 in legal fees the landowners incurred while defending their rights.
Yet, an Appeals Court decision later reversed that award, creating the dispute that is now on its way to the Supreme Court.
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Why does it matter?
The case tests whether a constitutional safeguard still has real force when it is prohibitively expensive to enforce.
If a family must spend enormous sums on lawyers and expert witnesses just to obtain fair market value, the price of asserting that right can swallow the protection itself.
The stakes reach far beyond one ranch. The plaintiffs' petition points to the millions of miles of gas pipelines in the U.S., and each additional project can trigger condemnation fights with landowners along its path, per Reason.
A Supreme Court ruling could decide whether those families are entitled to recover the costs of resisting pipeline companies.
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By agreeing to hear the case at all, the justices indicated they will settle the disagreement among appeals courts over whether state compensation rules apply when private pipeline companies use federal eminent domain authority.
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