Sept. 2016 protest against Dakota Access Pipeline
By: Mary Steurer
MANDAN, N.D. (North Dakota Monitor) – A behemoth defamation lawsuit brought by the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline against Greenpeace began its trial in a Mandan courtroom on Monday.
Energy Transfer, a Texas-based oil and gas company, accuses Greenpeace of using underhanded means to back demonstrations against the pipeline in 2016 and 2017.
South-central North Dakota was the center of a roughly seven-month protest against the project. Thousands camped near the pipeline crossing on Lake Oahe in support of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, which asserts that the pipeline is a violation of its sovereignty, poses a contamination threat to its water supply and has disrupted sacred cultural sites.
Greenpeace was one of many activist groups supporting the effort at the time. Energy Transfer says Greenpeace used tactics including defamation, vandalism and harassment in an attempt to tarnish the company’s reputation and sink the project. Attorney Trey Cox of Gibson Dunn, the law firm representing Energy Transfer in the case, told the courtroom on Monday the energy company seeks a little under $300 million from Greenpeace.
Greenpeace denies these allegations, and maintains it never played a significant role in the protests. It claims the lawsuit is a veiled effort to harm Greenpeace and intimidate other activist groups.
Both parties have called the lawsuit, which stretches back six years and has thousands of filings, one of the longest civil cases in state history.
“This is a big trial, it has an impact on a lot of people,” Southwest Judicial District Court Judge James Gion told the courtroom Monday morning.
At about 9 a.m., bailiffs escorted a group of roughly 30 people into the left side of the gallery.
Gion said this was the first of three groups of potential jurors that would go before the court for jury selection.
The court seeks nine jurors, plus alternates.
The trial is scheduled for five weeks, not including time for jury deliberation.
“It’s an imposition on your time in business to be here, I understand that,” Gion said to the jury pool.
Attorneys for Greenpeace previously asked Gion to move the case to a different court, arguing that jurors would be biased against the environmental group. Gion denied the request, finding their evidence inconclusive.
Several in the jury pool told the court Monday they have ties to the oil and gas industry.
Many also said they have negative memories of the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.
“It made me think of the destruction in our community,” one woman remarked.
Some said they believed their opinion of the protests could make it difficult for them to be fair jurors. Others said enough time had passed that they could be objective.
Those selected to be on the jury will be forbidden from reading or watching news about the trial, or talking with friends and family about the case, Gion said. They also cannot discuss the lawsuit privately with any of the parties or with court personnel.
Jury selection is expected to take up the first two days. After a jury is seated, parties will present their opening statements.
In an unusual move for North Dakota courts, Gion has so far denied media requests for photography or recording inside the courtroom. He also has denied requests to livestream the trial.
An independent group monitoring the trial on Monday announced it will petition the North Dakota Supreme Court to review several of Gion’s decisions related to public access. North Dakota Newspaper Association Attorney Jack McDonald also planned to petition the state Supreme Court for expanded media access on behalf of media organizations.
Greenpeace International recently counter-sued Energy Transfer in the Netherlands, asking the court to find that the company’s legal challenges unfairly targeted Greenpeace and to award the environmental group damages, among other requests.
The case is the first lawsuit filed under a new European Union directive intended to protect organizations from freedom of speech attacks, attorneys for Greenpeace said in a press conference last week.
Many states have passed laws to protect people from being targeted by civil suits for exercising their First Amendment rights, but North Dakota is not one of them. The statutes aim to curb what is sometimes referred to as “strategic litigation against public participation,” allowing defendants to file for the dismissal of lawsuits related to protected speech.
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