Overview
Steptoe's success for Colonial Pipeline Company in litigation over a gasoline blending project that turned on the filed rate doctrine was covered by Law360 in a December 1 article titled "Gas Shipper Can't Stop Pipeline From Blending in Butane."
On November 30, a judge for the US District Court of New Jersey granted summary judgment in favor of Colonial and Powder Springs Logistics, LLC and dismissed claims brought by one of Colonial’s shippers, George E. Warren LLC (GEW), alleging that an in-line blending program taking place along the pipeline violated a portion of the Interstate Commerce Act, the Carmack Amendment, and New Jersey tort law. Judge Keven McNulty also granted Colonial's request for a declaratory judgment that GEW suffered no legally cognizable damage when it received gasoline that was blended with butane while in transit in the Colonial pipeline because the gasoline delivered complied with the product specifications set forth in Colonial’s tariff approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
The court dismissed GEW's claims based on the filed rate doctrine, holding that "[t]he receipt of gasoline within a certain blend margin is not specified in the tariff. Therefore, to recognize that GEW has a right to receive its gasoline with a sufficiently high blend margin to continue its downstream blending would be to recognize a right that does not exist in the FERC-approved tariff. More importantly, compensating GEW for receiving gasoline with a reduced blend margin would violate the nondiscrimination strand of the filed rate doctrine, because similarly situated shippers who did not sue would be paying different rates for that same service."
The Steptoe energy litigation team representing Colonial in this matter is led by partner Jennifer Quinn-Barabanov, with associates Shaun Boedicker, Conor Brady and Kristoph Becker.
The full article can be read at Law360 (subscription required).
