North Dakota landowners argue property rights dispute before US Supreme Court

A group of northwest North Dakota landowners urged U.S. Supreme Court justices Monday to find that they should be reimbursed for legal costs they paid in a land dispute with a pipeline company.

Natural gas pipeline developer WBI Energy used federal eminent domain to take portions of the McKenzie County landowners’ properties in 2018. The owners were reimbursed for the value of their land under a confidential settlement signed in 2021, according to court records. But that didn’t include the attorney fees the property owners incurred to reach that agreement.

The property owners — which include Leonard and Denae Hoffmann, Randall Stevenson and Rocky Prestangen — argue that WBI is required to compensate them for those costs under North Dakota law. WBI says that because it used a federal power to take the land, state law doesn’t apply.

After an appeals court sided with WBI in the suit last year, the property owners petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case. The high court heard oral arguments from the parties Monday morning.

North Dakota landowners want to bring eminent domain case to US Supreme Court

The disagreement is rooted in the federal law WBI used to seize the landowners’ property, an amendment the Natural Gas Act passed in 1947. The act empowers companies like WBI to take land for natural gas infrastructure so long as landowners are fairly compensated, but it doesn’t say anything about whether legal costs are part of that.

Bob McNamara, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, the libertarian-leaning legal group representing the landowners, told justices that when Congress passed the act, it intended for state laws to be able to fill in this gap.

“Silence meant state law then, silence means state law today,” he said during Monday’s hearing.

Several justices expressed skepticism toward McNamara’s claim. They questioned why WBI wouldn’t follow federal standards for fair compensation if it is exercising a federal power. Under those standards, WBI would not have to pay attorney fees.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson also questioned why Congress would defer to state laws in this area if the purpose of the Natural Gas Act was to make interstate pipeline infrastructure easier to develop.

“It was trying to get away from states interfering with the development of pipelines,” Jackson said.

McNamara said that until this case, federal courts around the country have sided with the landowners’ interpretation of the law. He said that this hasn’t stopped natural gas pipelines from being built.

He also said America has a long history of protecting the rights of property owners from federal overreach.

North Dakota part of 12-state coalition urging Supreme Court to take up property rights case

Paul Hughes, who argued on behalf of WBI Energy, said if Congress had wanted state compensation laws to apply, it would have explicitly said so in the Natural Gas Act.

“States don’t get to govern the federal government’s eminent domain authority,” he said.

Assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General Zoe Jacoby also spoke Monday. She said the federal government agrees with WBI’s position. Private natural gas pipeline developers only need to meet federal standards for just compensation even if state laws would have them pay landowners more, Jacoby said.

The court has yet to issue a decision in the case.

A North Dakota federal judge initially ruled in favor of the landowners and ordered WBI to pay them about $380,000. That decision was reversed by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in March 2025. It is the only federal appellate circuit to make this finding.

The landowners that summer petitioned the high court to overturn the 8th Circuit’s ruling.

North Dakota and 11 other states soon after filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the landowners’ position. The 11 other states were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.