The Supreme Court has set oral arguments for Nov. 9 in an eminent domain case that has pitted North Dakota landowners against a gas company over how much they should be paid for having a pipeline trenched across their land.
The legal question for the justices in Hoffmann v. WBI Energy Transmission is whether courts should turn to federal or state law in such disputes. The case has worked its way through the court system as the Trump administration pushes to make it easier to build gas pipelines across the country, which means more disputes between companies and landowners over how much companies should pay when they take property from unwilling sellers.
Support for Trump among farmers has sagged in recent months as the agricultural sector has struggled with rising fertilizer and fuel costs, and the president has angered some ranchers with efforts to reduce beef prices.
The ranchers and other landowners say they should be entitled to the legal fees and other costs they racked up in their successful challenge of WBI Energy Transmission’s appraisal of what they were owed for taking their property for the 12-mile natural gas line.
