The Eighth Circuit has shut down Alliance Pipeline LP’s latest attempt to derail a years-long legal battle with farmland owners who allege pipeline construction wrecked their crop yields, ruling Thursday that arbitration agreements signed by many landowners don’t automatically entitle the company to an appeal.
In a brief but pointed three-page order, a three-judge panel said Alliance had failed to establish any legal basis for immediate appellate review, despite arguing that about three-quarters of affected landowners had signed arbitration deals before the massive gas pipeline project began in the 1990s.
“Alliance has not pointed to any authority indicating the mere existence of an arbitration agreement provides an automatic right of immediate appeal,” the panel wrote.
A Case Rooted in the Fields
The litigation stretches across farmland in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and North Dakota, where property owners claim construction of the Alliance gas line left long-lasting scars on soil productivity.
Back in 2023, a lower court dismissed claims from landowners bound by arbitration but allowed about 25% of plaintiffs—those without such agreements—to press forward in court.
Then came the Supreme Court’s 2024 Smith v. Spirrizzi decision, which clarified that courts can stay cases tied to arbitration rather than dismiss them outright. Riding that ruling, landowners persuaded the district court to reinstate and pause the arbitration-related claims. Alliance appealed, seeking to halt proceedings entirely while the Eighth Circuit reviewed the matter.
