Settlement over access and easement rights of coastal, ranch and inland real properties following oil pipeline shutdown in 2015

Our clients were owners of real property with decades-old easements for a 130-mile long oil pipeline built in the late 1980s. In 2015, the pipeline ruptured and was shut down. The operator attempted to use its easements to pursue a replace or repair strategy. We fought for the property owners on the grounds that the failed maintenance of the pipeline and long-term closure invalidated the easements.

We pursued class certification for almost two hundred properties, including multi-million dollar coastal ranches near Gaviota, vineyards and single family homes in the Santa Ynez Valley, and commercial agricultural operations near Cuyama. We litigated the case against the operator responsible for the shutdown, and against subsequent owners. As class counsel, we used expert witnesses to establish favorable interpretation of the easement language, and economic impacts to the properties that would result from a project to replace the pipeline and from renewed easement rights.

After more than eight years of litigation, the defendants agreed to pay $70 million for renewed easement rights, and temporary access for construction to repair corrosion along the length of the pipeline. The settlement guaranteed minimum payments of $50,000 for each parcel with a pipeline easement, and additional allocations of settlement funds based on property use, value and specific prior easement terms.