Dormant Commerce Claim Challenging Solid Waste Flow Control Proceeds to Discovery – JD Supra

Beveridge & Diamond (B&D) litigators defeated a motion to dismiss a claim brought by landfill and solid waste companies challenging the constitutionality of a municipal ordinance imposing flow control, requiring all solid waste collected in the defendant city to be directed to a privately operated landfill. The published decision, issued by a federal district court in Louisiana, addresses the tension between two competing Supreme Court decisions on the legality of flow control and upholds the waste companies’ claims, allowing the case to move forward. Texas Regional Landfill v. City of Shreveport, ___ F.Supp.3d ___, 2026 WL 1031843 (W.D. La. April 16, 2026).
The plaintiff waste companies collect and manage waste in Shreveport, Louisiana that is hauled across state lines to a landfill in west Texas for disposal. The city’s ordinance directs all waste collected in Shreveport to a city-owned and privately managed landfill in Louisiana. The Complaint filed by B&D explains that the flow control ordinance violates the Dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against interstate commerce in solid waste. The U.S. Supreme Court has long held that the Dormant Commerce Clause bars state and local laws that burden or discriminate against interstate commerce to advantage local economic interests. For 200 years, the Supreme Court has struck down economic protectionism that is contrary to the national economy, which, under the Commerce Clause, only Congress can regulate.
The district court decision addresses the complex issue of applying the Dormant Commerce Clause to flow control governing a public/private landfill. In 1994, the Supreme Court struck down a flow control law discriminating in favor of private companies. C & A Carbone v. Town of Clarkstown, 511 U.S. 383. But in 2007, the Court upheld flow control directing waste to a publicly owned landfill, reasoning that economic favoritism toward a government facility was constitutional. United Haulers v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Mgmt. Auth., 550 U.S. 330.
The Texas Regional Landfill opinion ruled that Shreveport’s landfill business arrangements more closely resembled the unconstitutional flow control of Carbone. The Louisiana court wrote that “resolution of that question will require factual development regarding the degree of private control, the allocation of economic benefits, and the practical effect of the ordinance on interstate commerce.”
The decision provides an important boost for challenges to flow control laws, which were made more difficult by United Haulers. The decision also affirms the Dormant Commerce Clause as a vehicle to challenge laws that burden and discriminate against private economic interests, a principle the Supreme Court limited in its fractured 2023 decision in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, 598 U.S. 356. Pork Producers upheld a California law banning the sale of pork products in the state, produced without measures promoting animal welfare, despite enormous impacts on interstate commerce outside of California. Lower courts continue to grapple with the parameters of the Dormant Commerce Clause in the wake of Pork Producers. However, decisions like Texas Regional Landfill underscore that this ancient constitutional doctrine still requires factual scrutiny of regulations that impose costs and burdens beyond local and state borders. See, e.g., Association for Accessible Medicines v. Ellison, 140 F.4th 957 (8th Cir. 2025) (affirming preliminary injunction against Minnesota law regulating drug prices; Dormant Commerce Clause constrains laws that impose price controls on drugs imported into a state).
B&D’s brief in Texas Regional Landfill provides a primer on the Dormant Commerce Clause and the claims in the case, which also seek damages and attorney fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Principals James Slaughter (Washington, DC) and Michael Murphy (New York), Senior Associate Lauren Karam (Boston), and Associate Emily Schwartz (Seattle) represent the plaintiffs along with Christopher Handy and Leland Horton of Bradley Murchison in New Orleans. B&D Of Counsel and appellate litigator Justin Smith (Washington, DC) assisted in this analysis.
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DISCLAIMER: Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations. Attorney Advertising.
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