Expropriation, Land Use and Wetlands Loss

Kean Miller’s land use and expropriation team understands that each parcel of land, like its owners, has its own features, history and characteristics. Our team has 40 years of experience handling transactions, litigation, and issues that arise from the ownership, sale, financing, development or construction of real property. We understand that disputes involving land use can have a significant impact on owners, users, mortgagees and even the public at large. We have handled numerous cases where the public right of use and private ownership have been at odds. Kean Miller is on the cutting edge of wetlands loss litigation including permitting, land loss issues, and other substantive environmental matters.

Kean Miller represents some of the country’s most prominent energy, chemical, and pipeline companies in the sale, purchase, financing, and condemnation of all manner of real property. We assist clients in subdividing their property and in developing strategies for property acquisition. Kean Miller has handled numerous pipeline projects from start to finish, including right of way negotiations, servitudes, purchases, final demands, and expropriation litigation. We have acted on behalf of Fortune 100 companies, individuals, partnerships, limited partnerships, and major international energy companies. We regularly represent financial institutions, chemical and petrochemical companies, pipeline companies, municipalities, conservation authorities, other regulatory bodies and levels of government on issues affecting real property, including expropriation, land use applications, property assessments and residential tenancy issues.

Representative Experience
  • Representation of a significant energy and pipeline client in a proceeding before the Louisiana Commissioner of Conservation to obtain a certificate of transportation for a pipeline designed to transport hydrogen produced from steam methane reformation. With that certificate, the client obtained the authority to expropriate necessary rights to build the pipeline.
  • Representation of a national pipeline and energy transfer company in the successful expropriation of a 250-mile expropriation project from the Haynesville Shale to Abbeville, Louisiana
  • Representation of a global energy company in the expropriation of a proposed 200 mile pipeline in Louisiana
  • Representation of a global pipeline company in a 75-mile pipeline expropriation/condemnation project from Garyville, Louisiana to East Feliciana Parish, north of Baton Rouge. The pipeline will carry liquefied petroleum products.
  • Representation of global exploration and production companies in wetlands loss litigation along Louisiana's coastal parishes
  • Representation of a major energy and chemical company in the expropriation of a 180 mile ethylene pipeline right of way that extended from Ascension Parish in Louisiana to the Texas border
  • Representation of chemical pipeline company in the expropriation of an eight mile pipeline in St. Charles Parish
  • Representation of an energy pipeline company in negotiation of rights of way in West Baton Rouge Parish
  • General representation of an pipeline company with a products pipeline system crossing the state of Louisiana
  • Representation of global energy and chemical company in the expropriation of pipeline servitudes throughout South and South-Central Louisiana including negotiations with state, local and regional landowners involving complex compensation and wetlands issues
  • Representation of international energy exploration and refining company in a land use cases involving the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development where DOTD sued to acquire land owned by the company for its retail and service station operations
  • Representation of a major pipeline company in pipeline right-of-way expropriations, disputes with landowners regarding pipeline access and land use issues, and in cases involving claims for damages and injuries from pipeline incidents
  • Representation of a major pipeline company in the expropriation of underground gas storage rights, surface easements, and pipeline rights of way for an underground natural gas storage facility in St. James Parish, and in a case involving the public need for pipeline land
  • Representation of a Louisiana gas company in the acquisition and conversion of a Department of Energy strategic petroleum reserve oil pipeline into a gas transmission pipeline
  • Representation of numerous clients against the individual landowners, governmental entities and businesses, including: Citizens Bank v. State of Louisiana and DOTD; DOTD v. Ronald Rodrigue; Shell Pipeline v. E.B. Schwing; Koch v. Louisiana Intrastate Gas Corporation; Lafargue v. Louisiana Intrastate Gas Corporation
  • Representation of interstate and intrastate natural gas and product pipeline companies in acquiring rights of way by expropriation in numerous parishes throughout south Louisiana including a major pipeline project which extended from Houston, Texas to St. James Parish in Louisiana
  • Representation of clients in state and federal expropriation and condemnation actions including disputes with landowners concerning property access rights and property damages
  • Representation of an industrial landowner in a case involving the expropriation of land by city, parish and state governmental bodies for roadways and other improvements
Areas of Experience
  • Compensation agreements
  • Compensation opinions
  • Negotiation and acquisition of easements/rights of way
  • Documentation of easements/rights of way
  • Expropriations (specializing in pipelines)
  • Land tenure issues
  • Wetlands implications in rights of way acquisitions
  • Environmental impacts in rights of way acquisitions
  • Pipeline safety issues (spills, leaks, anomalies)
  • Reports, opinions and recommendations
  • Statutory amendment analysis
  • Statutory rights of way
  • Streets and highways
  • Title research and reports
  • Water rights