Greenpeace asks North Dakota Supreme Court to move Dakota Access Pipeline trial to Fargo

The request is the culmination of multiple unsuccessful attempts to convince Southwest Judicial District Judge James Gion that Morton County is the wrong venue for the lawsuit.

The case concerns Greenpeace’s involvement in the protests against the pipeline in 2016 and 2017, which took place in Morton County roughly 40 miles south of Mandan and near the Standing Rock Reservation.

Energy Transfer accuses Greenpeace of backing unlawful and destructive behavior by protesters and spreading lies about the pipeline. As a result, construction of the pipeline was delayed for months and a group of banks pulled their funding for the project, the company claims.

Attorneys representing the environmental group have promised to prove these claims false by the end of the five-week trial that started this week. But they also say their evidence may not matter to the jury, many of whom reported holding strong views about the pipeline and the demonstrations.

“Residents of Morton County are not just familiar with the protests — they lived through them,” attorneys for Greenpeace wrote in a brief filed with the high court Thursday.

Nearly half of the final jury pool told the court they were affected by the protests in some way, according to the petition, while roughly a third expressed views Greenpeace sees as biased against the environmental group or favorable to Energy Transfer.

The environmental group also cited a survey of 150 Morton County residents it commissioned to gather info about potential jury bias in 2022. Nearly all the residents surveyed said they could not be a fair juror in the case.

Energy Transfer has countered that judges should only move a case in extraordinary circumstances and that doing so would unfairly delay progress in the lawsuit and inconvenience both parties.

The company has also argued that Morton County juries have previously heard cases related to the pipeline without issue.

A survey of Morton County residents paid for by Energy Transfer reported that most were not impacted by the protests and do not hold biases against Greenpeace.

Gion found the results of both surveys inconclusive, leading him to deny Greenpeace’s first request to move the case to a different court. He indicated that he would be willing to revisit the issue at trial.

Greenpeace alleges that Energy Transfer, the pipeline’s developer, intentionally filed suit against the environmental group in Morton County to get a sympathetic jury.

If Greenpeace loses the case, it could be ordered to pay Energy Transfer hundreds of millions of dollars. If that happens, Greenpeace may not have enough money leftover to appeal the verdict, according to the brief.

The organization wants the Supreme Court to review whether Gion’s actions were an abuse of authority.

It also asked the high court to hold oral arguments on its request to change courts as soon as possible.

Greenpeace wrote that shipping the case to Cass County would be ideal, but that it would accept moving it anywhere else the Supreme Court suggests.

According to Greenpeace’s 2022 survey, far fewer residents of Cass County, which includes Fargo, reported having ties to the pipeline or the protests compared to Morton County.

The counties’ political leanings are also much different. Roughly three-fourths of Morton County residents voted for President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Trump supported the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline at the start of his first term in 2017.

By comparison, roughly 53% of Cass County residents voted for Trump in 2024.

Allowing the case to move forward would be a waste of time and resources for the parties, the court, the jurors and other Morton County taxpayers, attorneys for Greenpeace told the high court.

Greenpeace also pointed out in its petition that the case is before Gion — who ordinarily works in Dickinson — because Morton County judges recused over conflicts.

The environmental group has raised concerns about potential efforts by third parties to malign jurors.

In December, it asked Gion for permission to investigate a pro-fossil fuel political mailer circulating in Mandan and Bismarck. In a slew of evidence-related motions filed by both parties, Greenpeace also asked Gion to exclude information about how the protests affected the surrounding community.

Gion denied the requests.

Before the trial started, Greenpeace also unsuccessfully raised concerns about television advertisements and text messages that appeared to be targeting Morton County residents with biased information about the parties, according to the brief.