Most Alliance Pipeline Crop Damage Claims Headed to Arbitration

Most landowners alleging Alliance Pipeline LP damaged their crops in a class action suit must pursue their claims in arbitration after a Thursday ruling by a federal appeals court.

The landowners whose leases contain arbitration provisions must arbitrate all of their claims against Alliance, the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said, vacating a lower court ruling that they only had to arbitrate whether the pipeline had harmed their crops and the value of any damages.

Alliance entered into contracts in 1997 with North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, and individual landowners in order to build a natural gas ...