Louisiana Court Tosses Award for Oystermen

The Louisiana Supreme Court threw out a $1.3-billion judgment Tuesday for oystermen who claimed that a coastal restoration project ruined their businesses.

The 130 oystermen, who leased water bottoms in Breton Sound, sued the state after a 1991 freshwater diversion program channeled some Mississippi River water and sediment into the sound, destroying their oyster beds.

A Plaquemines Parish jury awarded the oystermen $1.3 billion in 2000, but the high court reversed that decision Tuesday, saying that all but 12 of the oystermen’s leases renounced any legal claim to damages from such projects.

The plaintiffs who had the 12 leases without such clauses waited too long to sue, the court ruled.

The ruling could affect four similar lawsuits still in court, said Andrew Wilson, a private attorney representing the state in these cases.

“It’s a major step in the state’s efforts toward keeping the coast from washing away,” he said.

One of the oystermen, Kenneth Fox, criticized the ruling, saying people like him had tended their leases for years, often decades, turning them from empty water bottom to profitable holdings under contracts with the state.

“There was nothing in it to tell us the state was going to destroy our leases. We had a legal binding contract with the state of Louisiana,” he said.

Among lawsuits that could be affected is one in which another group of southeast Louisiana oystermen won a $661-million judgment against the state. That decision has since been overturned and sent back for a jury trial.

The state undertook the diversion project to help restore its eroding coast.