North Dakota ranchers asked the Supreme Court to make a pipeline company that took their land pay the legal bill they ran up fighting for a fair price.
Story Highlights
- The ranchers won a fair price for their land but were left with about $383,000 in lawyer fees and court costs.
- A federal appeals court said the pipeline company stood in the federal government’s shoes, so a North Dakota law making it pay those costs did not apply.
- The ranchers say Congress never wiped out that state protection, and other appeals courts agree with them.
- The company and the Trump administration say one national rule should govern, and that rule does not cover lawyer fees.
The Case Before The Justices
The Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday, November 9, in Hoffmann v. WBI Energy Transmission. The case asks one question: when a private pipeline company uses federal power to take land, does it have to follow the state’s rules on what it owes the owner? The ranchers asked the justices to reverse a lower court and restore an order that made WBI Energy pay their legal bill. WBI asked the Court to let that ruling stand. Lawyers for the federal government shared WBI’s time at the podium and argued on its side.
The fight began when WBI, a natural gas pipeline company based in Bismarck, needed a path across ranchland in McKenzie County, North Dakota. Federal regulators approved the pipeline, and the two sides could not agree on a price. So WBI went to court under eminent domain, the power to take private land for public use as long as the owner is paid. The ranchers, led by Leonard Hoffmann, spent about three years in court before they settled on the value of the land.
How A Fair Price Turned Into A Big Bill
North Dakota law lets landowners recover their reasonable lawyer fees and costs when their land is taken. A federal trial judge used that law and ordered WBI to pay about $383,000, according to reports. The bulk of that was lawyer fees. The ranchers’ lawyers at the Institute for Justice, a property rights law firm, put the fees at roughly $300,000.
The Eighth Circuit, the federal appeals court that covers North Dakota, threw out that order on March 24, 2025. The judges noted that lawyer fees are usually not paid when the United States itself takes land. They said nothing changes when the government hands that power to a private company under the Natural Gas Act, the federal law that governs interstate gas pipelines. In their view, WBI stepped into the federal government’s shoes and owed only what the Constitution requires: the value of the land, not the cost of the fight.
The Ranchers’ Case
The ranchers point out that the Natural Gas Act says nothing about how to measure what an owner is owed. When a federal law is silent and private parties are involved, they argue, state law usually fills the gap. WBI is a private, for-profit company, they say, and it does not become the federal government because Congress let it use eminent domain.
They also note that several other federal appeals courts have let state rules apply in pipeline cases. That split means a landowner’s rights can depend on which part of the country he lives in. A dozen states filed a brief backing the ranchers.
The Company’s Case
WBI says a single national standard is needed for pipelines that cross state lines. The federal government agrees. Its brief, filed by the Solicitor General, the Justice Department’s top lawyer before the Supreme Court, argues that when Congress hands out federal eminent domain power without naming a different rule, the Fifth Amendment standard applies. Under that standard, owners get the value of the property taken, and lawyer fees are not part of it.
The government also points to a 2021 ruling, PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey, which upheld the reach of the eminent domain power Congress gave pipeline companies. A ruling in the Hoffmann case is expected by summer 2027. It will decide whether ranchers and farmers in the path of a pipeline can count on getting their legal costs back, or whether the price of defending their land stays with them.
Sources:
scotusblog.com, law.cornell.edu, oyez.org, justice.gov, supremecourt.gov, ij.org
