Presented by the American Public Power Association
A jury’s decision that Greenpeace defamed an oil company is alarming legal scholars and free speech advocates — and could even force the shutdown of the storied environmental group’s U.S. chapter.
The North Dakota jury ordered the group to pay more than $660 million in damages to the developer Energy Transfer in connection to protests against construction of the Dakota Access pipeline in 2016 and 2017. While Greenpeace plans to appeal, Wednesday’s verdict could further chill an already arctic atmosphere for public protest against powerful actors.
The Trump administration is cracking down on student protesters, seeking to deport academics and campus activists it accuses of pro-Hamas advocacy. Legal attacks against journalists are mounting, including President Donald Trump’s own lawsuits against CBS, ABC and an Iowa pollster. And Republican officials across the country have called for harsher penalties for activists, from increasing the prison sentence for blocking traffic to granting immunity to drivers who hit protesters in the street.
Greenpeace’s interim Executive Director Sushma Raman told Niina H. Farah and Robin Bravender the group doesn’t have the money to pay the damages. The organization previously said a loss in the case would probably “mean the end” of its American affiliate, Greenpeace USA, The Washington Post reported.
The verdict could deter not just environmental activism but also religious or political demonstrations, trial attorney Marty Garbus told Niina and Robin.
“It’s far bigger than the environmental movement,” said Garbus, who has represented high-profile clients including Nelson Mandela, Cesar Chavez and Daniel Ellsberg.
Dallas-based Energy Transfer filed the defamation case against Greenpeace in 2019, contending that the environmental group had incited protests and violence to damage the company’s reputation.
The months of protests against the Dakota Access pipeline became a national flash point, drawing thousands of protesters who sought to support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Tribal members opposed the placement of the pipeline under a reservoir that serves as their primary water supply.
A group of independent trial monitors following the case released a joint statement Wednesday saying they had observed “multiple violations of due process” that prevented Greenpeace from getting a fair trial.
The group said the majority of jurors either worked in the fossil fuel industry or had family members who did, making the process inherently biased. They also pointed out that the court had rejected Greenpeace’s requests to change the venue to another county where daily life was not disrupted by the protests.
Vicki Granado, a spokesperson for Energy Transfer, said the verdict is a win for law-abiding Americans “who understand the difference between the right to free speech and breaking the law.” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) tweeted that “today, justice has been done.”
But some legal experts say the case is a textbook example of a type of lawsuit designed to discourage free speech, known as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP.
“It’s just that by filing a lawsuit, in and of itself, that often makes people fearful to speak out, makes people fearful to protest,” Blake Klinkner, a law professor at the University of North Dakota, told Niina and Robin.