On April 9, 2025, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that faith- and community-based groups1 (the "Groups") representing certain residents of St. James Parish, Louisiana, may continue with their suit seeking a moratorium on the construction and expansion of industrial facilities in the Parish. SeeInclusive Louisiana v. St. James Parish, No. 23-30908 (5th Cir. 2025).
The Groups originally sued St. James Parish in federal district court in March 2023, alleging that the Parish discriminates against them by directing hazardous industrial facility development towards majority-Black districts and Black churches where their members and congregants live. Additionally, the Groups argued that the Parish authorizes industrial development that destroys and restricts access to the cemeteries of their enslaved ancestors. As such, the Groups brought seven claims for violations of their constitutional and statutory civil rights, seeking, among other things, a judgment declaring the Parish's policies, patterns, and customs of discriminatory land use are violative of the Groups rights and injunctive relief enjoining the Parish from siting more industrial facilities in the majority-Black districts.
In November 2023, Judge Carl Barbier of the Eastern District of Louisiana dismissed the Groups' claims for a variety of reasons. Most notably, the district court dismissed two of the Groups' claims for lack of standing on the basis that, because the inaccessibility of the cemeteries was due to third parties, the Groups' alleged religious injuries were not "fairly traceable" to the Parish. The district court dismissed the other five claims on the grounds that such claims were based on a single discrete incident in the past—the Parish's adoption of its alleged "facially discriminatory" Land Use Plan in 2014—and thus, were time barred due to a one-year statute of limitations period within which the Groups did not bring their claims. The Groups then timely appealed the district court's opinion to the Fifth Circuit, which reversed the district court.
The Fifth Circuit panel, consisting of Judges Carl Stewart, Catharina Haynes, and Patrick Higginbotham, agreed with the Groups' argument that they had pleaded enough facts to allege that the adoption of the 2014 Land Use Plan was not a single, discrete action giving rise to their claims, but was rather pled to be a part of the "longstanding pattern and practice of racially discriminatory land use decisions" where "at least one act in this pattern and practice occurred within the limitations period." The Fifth Circuit relied on certain of the Groups' pleaded acts occurring within the one-year limitation period to come to this conclusion, including the Parish's August 2022 decision to reject the Groups' request for a mortarium on "polluting industry" in their majority-Black communities. The Fifth Circuit also agreed with the Groups' argument that their religious injuries could stem from the Parish's land use practices that authorized the alleged destruction of the cemeteries. Accordingly, the Fifth Circuit remanded the case back to the district court for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.
In closing, the Fifth Circuit noted that the Groups have standing to pursue their claims, but whether the Groups will prove the allegations or prevail on any of their claims, "remains to be seen." Liskow will be monitoring and covering further developments in these proceedings.
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