Liskow achieved a major win for Greenfield Louisiana, LLC at the Louisiana Supreme Court this month in The Descendants Project, et al. v. St. John the Baptist Parish, Case No. 2025-C-00543.
The subject of the lawsuit was a zoning ordinance passed by St. John the Baptist Parish in 1990 that zoned the subject property for industrial use. This ordinance was in place when Greenfield purchased the property more than thirty years later for the purpose of constructing a state-of-the-art grain terminal.
Plaintiffs shortly thereafter filed suit, challenging the decades-old zoning ordinance on numerous grounds. The lower court dismissed all of these grounds except one regarding local government procedure. The court ruled the Parish Council failed to follow proper procedure in 1990 by making an amendment to the zoning ordinance without consulting the Planning Commission, thereby rendering the ordinance null and void. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed.
Throughout the court proceedings, Liskow attorneys argued that the Parish Council's procedure was proper, based on the authority granted to the Council in the Parish Home Rule Charter. Because the Home Rule Charter is tantamount to a parish's constitution, it trumped any conflict between the Charter and the parish's procedural ordinances.
The Louisiana Supreme Court ultimately agreed, reversing the lower courts' rulings, granting summary judgment to Greenfield, and reinstating the industrial zoning classification on the Greenfield property. A copy of the opinion can be found here.