LUFKIN, Texas – Following a bench trial, AZA convinced a judge hearing an East Texas pipeline easement dispute that its chemical manufacturing client should not have to shut down or dig up part of its pipeline.
With the judge’s ruling, AZA’s client Westlake Chemical owes nothing to a business that initially claimed up to $1 billion in damages because a pipeline it might build would cross an existing Westlake pipeline.
Angelina County District Judge Todd Kassaw denied a request from San Antonio area-based Express H2O Pipeline and Row for an injunction that could have caused Houston-based Westlake’s 200-mile-long ethylene pipeline from Mont Belvieu to Longview to be dug up in the middle for more than three miles.
“We believe the evidence showed that the suit was to leverage Westlake into paying Express based on the possibility of a theoretical pipeline being built across Westlake’s,” said AZA lead lawyer Todd Mensing. “Express H2O claimed it could never build an imaginary line on its easement because it would cross paths with Westlake’s existing pipeline, even though Texas is covered in crisscrossing pipelines. For instance, the area near the Houston Ship Channel looks like a bowl of spaghetti.”
This complex technical fight involved the interest of predecessors to the two companies, the status of the pipelines and a plethora of legal issues.
The initial lawsuit was for damages, but the final two-day hearing was over a pared-down injunction request. Landowning intervenors in the lawsuit, including the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, opposed the injunction request.
Judge Kassaw found Express H2O did not prove imminent harm. The court said in its order that Express H2O’s pipeline easement originally obtained by predecessor Gulf years ago and not used since 1996, was the older easement, but it did not have exclusivity or blanket rights. And the court found that Westlake’s pipeline is a common carrier, which means Westlake can condemn the easement of Express H2O in separate proceedings.
Mr. Mensing tried the case with AZA partners Jason McManis and Kelsi Stayart White, senior attorney Matt Davis and associate Thomas Frashier. AZA worked with local counsel Curt Fenley of Fenley and Bate.
The case is Express H2O Pipeline and Row, LLC vs. Westlake Chemical OpCo, LP in the159th district court in Angelia County, Texas. Case no. CV-00461-24-08
Houston and Dallas trial boutique Ahmad Zavitsanos & Mensing, or AZA, has earned repeated recognition from Chambers USA among the best in Texas for its commercial law, intellectual property and appellate practices. The firm has been listed by Best Lawyers’ Best Law Firms as one of the country’s best commercial litigation firms for 13 years; has been named Litigation Department of the Year by Texas Lawyer four times; has five times been named a Most Feared Law Firm in a national survey; and was twice dubbed a Texas Powerhouse law firm by Law360.