Pipeline Protesters Lose Suit Over Louisiana Land Trespass Law

Landowners and pipeline protesters in Louisiana lost their bid Friday to get the Fifth Circuit to find that a state statute unlawfully impeded their First Amendment rights.

“The statute in question is neither impermissibly vague nor violative of the First Amendment,” the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said.

Individuals protested the construction of the now-complete 162-mile Bayou Bridge Pipeline that connects an oil-and-gas hub in Texas to oil refineries in Louisiana. The protests, where people attached themselves to equipment, happened after amendments were made to Louisiana’s infrastructure trespass statute.

The arrested plaintiffs claimed they received permission from landowners to protest on the land, while the pipeline company said the landowners welcomed the pipeline construction.

In 2019, a group of plaintiffs including protesters, landowners, and advocacy organizations sued Louisiana’s attorney general, the sheriff of St. Martin Parish, and the district attorney.

They alleged the infrastructure trespass statute was facially unconstitutional for vagueness, was discriminatory, and violated the First Amendment.

The district court granted summary judgment for the Louisiana officials on all of the protesters’ remaining claims, which was then appealed.

The Fifth Circuit upheld the district court’s dismissal of the advocacy plaintiffs’ claims because they were only traceable to the attorney general, who had been dismissed from the case.

The landowners’ claims were also appropriately dismissed because they failed to state an injury-in-fact, the panel said. The landowners weren’t the ones protesting. Also, even though they claimed they allowed the protests to happen, the landowners haven’t said they plan to continue allowing such demonstrations on their property, the court said.

In terms of the protesters’ vageness claims, the district court provided a “narrowing construction” of how the statute should be construed, which limited any “indeterminacy,” the Fifth Circuit said.

The plaintiffs failed to show the statute is a content-based restriction on speech because the legislature “had a valid interest in not only preventing damage to critical infrastructure, but also, limiting trespass on those facilities,” the court said.

Judge James E. Graves Jr. wrote the opinion and was joined by Judge Cory T. Wilson.

Judge Stephen A. Higginson dissented, saying the statute is “unconstitutionally vague” because it doesn’t “give notice of what conduct is actually prohibited.”

The plaintiffs are represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights and Loyola University College of Law professor William P. Quigley.

The case is Hat v. Murrill, 5th Cir., No. 24-30272, 6/20/25.