Terrebonne Parish School Board v. Columbia Gulf Transmission Co.

Terrebonne Parish School Board (the board) (plaintiff) owned 641 acres of land (section 16). Most of section 16 consisted of floating freshwater marsh. In 1957, the board entered a standard-form agreement with the ancestor-in-interest of Koch Gateway Pipeline Company (Koch) (defendant) conveying “a right of way and easement . . . to construct, maintain, operate, repair, replace, change the size of and remove [pipelines] and appurtenances thereto, . . . in open ditches or canals not to exceed forty feet in width.” In 1958, Koch dredged a canal and built its pipeline. Columbia Gulf Transmission Co. (Columbia) (defendant) also built a pipeline on section 16. In 1965, the board entered a slightly different standard-form agreement with Columbia conveying “a servitude, right of way and easement to construct, lay, maintain, operate, alter, repair, remove, change the size of, and replace a [pipeline] and appurtenances thereto.” Columbia was granted a 100-foot-wide right-of-way. Koch and Columbia used pipeline canals to maintain their pipelines, but they did not maintain the canals or canal banks. In 1999, the board sued Koch and Columbia alleging that through the servitude holders’ use, the canals had widened to 70 feet and approximately 135 feet, respectively, and further, breaches in the canal banks were causing floating marsh to erode. The board claimed that Koch and Columbia had breached their duty to maintain the canals, causing damage to section 16. The district court granted summary judgment to Koch and Columbia on the ground that the contracts at issue did not impose an express duty to continuously maintain the canals and therefore any contract claim had lapsed. The board appealed.