Opinion ID: 3066027
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Separate Legal Status of Greenpeace USA Is

Text: Relevant to This Appeal It is axiomatic that a plaintiff must sue the proper party in order to obtain relief. See, e.g., Krupski v. Costa Crociere S.p.A., 130 S. Ct. 2485, 2494 (2010) (“[M]aking a deliberate choice to sue one party instead of another while fully understanding the factual and legal differences between the two parties is the antithesis of making a mistake concerning the proper party’s identity.”).3 It is similarly well recognized that a person (or corporation) can be held legally responsible only for his own actions, absent extraordinary circumstances. See, e.g., N.A.A.C.P. v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 920 (1982) (“Civil liability may not be imposed merely because an individual belonged to a group, some members of which committed acts of violence.”); First Nat. City Bank v. Banco Para El Comercio Exterior de Cuba (Bancec), 462 U.S. 611, 625 (1983) (“Separate legal personality has been described as an almost indispensable aspect of the public corporation.”). Certainly Shell understands these 3 Leonard v. Parry, 219 F.3d 25, 29 (1st Cir. 2000) (“[E]ven the most liberal interpretation of ‘mistake’ cannot include a deliberate decision not to sue a party whose identity plaintiff knew from the outset.”) (quotation omitted); Springman v. AIG Mktg., Inc., 523 F.3d 685, 690 (7th Cir. 2008) (“the maintenance for years of a suit against a party known by the plaintiff to be the wrong one to sue was an abuse of legal process”). 26 SHELL OFFSHORE V . GREENPEACE principles well—its own corporate disclosure statement takes up nearly a full page of its answering brief,4 listing all of the subsidiaries and entities Shell admittedly relies on to limit its own liability.5 Yet when it comes to Greenpeace USA, what is sauce for the goose is apparently not sauce for the gander. The majority claims that Greenpeace USA can be held to account for the actions of legally separate Greenpeace entities. But well-established law, as well as basic fairness, dictates otherwise. As the Supreme Court noted in a similar case: The taint of violence colored the conduct of some petitioners. They, of course, may be 4 Appellee Shell Offshore Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of SOI Finance Inc., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell US E&P Investments LLC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell Oil Company, which, in turn, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell Petroleum Inc., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell Petroleum N.V., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc. (Appellee’s Corporate Disclosure Statement). Shell Offshore Inc. is itself the parent corporation of Enterprise Oil North America Inc., which in turn is the parent company of Shell Gulf of M exico Inc., the other Shell appellee in this case. Id. 5 Consider the following exchange with Shell’s counsel at oral argument: The Court: I am very well aware that Shell has thousands of corporate and other entities and I have never heard a Shell representative basically say these are all worthless; we should treat them all as just one entity. Mr. Leppo: And I’m not saying that your honor . . . I will never make that argument. SHELL OFFSHORE V . GREENPEACE 27 held liable for the consequences of their violent deeds. The burden of demonstrating that it colored the entire collective effort, however, is not satisfied by evidence that violence occurred . . . Such a characterization must be supported by findings that adequately disclose the evidentiary basis for concluding that specific parties agreed to use unlawful means[.] Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. at 933 (emphasis added). Applying these principles to the case before us, Greenpeace USA should only be legally sanctioned for the actions of other independent entities on a sufficient showing that Greenpeace USA significantly coordinated with, encouraged, or controlled the actions of those groups. See, e.g., id. at 932–34 (the fact that certain activists engaged in unlawful conduct cannot be attributed to other protest organizers unless it could be shown that the latter had personally committed or authorized the unlawful acts); Bancec, 462 U.S. at 626–29 (explaining that “limited liability is the rule, not the exception,” and thus one corporate entity may only be held liable for the actions of another “where a corporate entity is so extensively controlled by its owner that a relationship of principal and agent is created.”). The record here, however, does not demonstrate such pervasive control. Instead, the record indicates that Greenpeace USA functions as an operationally independent member of Stichting Greenpeace Council (a.k.a., Greenpeace International), the Amsterdam-based “parent” entity that licenses the Greenpeace name to groups like Greenpeace USA. Together with the other fifteen voting members of 28 SHELL OFFSHORE V . GREENPEACE Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA helps set Greenpeace’s worldwide campaign priorities, such as preventing oil drilling in the Arctic, or logging in the Amazon. But when it comes to the methods and tactics used to advance those priorities, the record makes clear that each Greenpeace licensee is autonomous, and free to choose the tactics most likely to resonate with its local constituency. Thus, while Greenpeace New Zealand and Greenpeace Nordic may seek to advance the global “stop Shell” campaign through the unlawful boarding of Shell vessels, Greenpeace USA may choose more benign tactics, like the letter-writing campaign Greenpeace USA admits it coordinated through its website. Understood in its correct factual context, it is legally improper to impute the independent tactical choices of other Greenpeace licensees to Greenpeace USA in this litigation. Yet under the majority’s newly announced rule, Greenpeace USA’s separate legal status has no bearing on our decision. Of course, as previously noted, courts have consistently held just the opposite, and found that a party’s individual culpability is a key factor in fashioning an appropriate legal remedy. See, e.g., Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. at 932–34.6 The majority does not adequately explain why this case should be decided any differently, and absent such justification, I cannot endorse its permissive and pernicious 6 Scales v. United States, 367 U.S. 203, 228–30 (1961); Schware v. Bd. of Bar Exam. of State of N.M., 353 U.S. 232, 244 (1957); Anderson v. Abbott, 321 U .S. 349, 357–62 (1944); Louisiana-Pacific Corp. v. ASARCO, Inc., 5 F.3d 431, 433–34 (9th Cir. 1993). SHELL OFFSHORE V . GREENPEACE 29 new rule.7 Without sufficient proof of what Greenpeace USA itself has done to threaten Shell’s Arctic drilling operations, I would not grant a preliminary injunction.