The Secondary Effects of Environmental Justice Litigation: The Case of West Dallas Coalition for Environmental Justice v. EPA

This case study seeks to explain why environmental justice organizations pursue legal remedies even when pursuit of legal claims continually fails to meet primary organizational objectives. We rely on analytic narrative, the modeling of processes that explain outcomes through the building of complex stories, for our explanation of this phenomenon. Specifically, this research traces the use of a litigation strategy used by the West Dallas Coalition for Environmental Justice, identifying “the actors, the decision points they faced, the choices they made, the paths taken and shunned, and the manner in which their choices generated events and outcomes.” Previous accounts of environmental justice litigation, focusing primarily on legal outcomes, have painted a sobering picture. In reference to the predominant legal strategy of the day, one commentator concluded that “[b]y 1998 no one had yet succeeded in bringing, and winning, a substantive Title VI environmental justice case in court.” Yet, litigation remains a strategy of choice for many environmental justice groups.