The Climate Docket

Tyson Uses Fossil Fuel Playbook to Argue for Federal Jurisdiction in Covid Lawsuit

Filed Under: Featured, Liability Litigation

By Karen Savage

At first glance, fossil fuel companies facing climate change-related lawsuits have little in common with an Iowa meatpacking plant hoping to duck a lawsuit for allegedly not protecting its workers from Covid-19.

But Tyson Foods is emulating  Exxon, Shell, Chevron, BP and other fossil fuel companies being sued for their role in climate change by arguing the pandemic-related case raises issues of federal law. The meatpacking giant contends it was acting under federal instructions, including an executive order issued by President Trump.

The fossil fuel companies argue that cases against them should be heard in federal court in part because they were issued leases by the federal government, which they say qualifies them as “federal officers.” Tyson claims that President Trump’s designation of meatpacking plants as “essential,” qualifies it as a federal officer.

Both Tyson and the fossil fuel companies are relying on the Federal Officer Removal Statute, which says that cases filed against those acting under the direction of the federal government should be heard in federal court.  

Thus far, fossil fuel companies haven’t had much luck. The First, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits have ruled  that the climate cases belong in state courts and have swept aside the arguments that those federal leases make them answerable only to federal laws.

Whether Tyson will succeed remains to be seen.  The lawsuit against it was filed by the family of 52-year-old Isidro Fernandez, a Tyson employee who died of Covid-19 in April. Fernandez was one of thousands of workers at the plant who tested positive for the virus.

[Read more…]

Delaware Takes Its Turn Arguing Its Climate Suit Belongs in State Court

Filed Under: Delaware Lawsuit, Latest News, Liability Litigation

By Karen Savage

Delaware told a federal court on Friday that its climate fraud case against several fossil fuel entities belongs in state court, where it was filed alleging multiple state law violations.

“The state asserts that removal was improper because the state’s complaint does not raise any federal claims, and the Delaware Superior Court is the appropriate forum for adjudicating the exclusively state-law claims,” the Delaware Attorney General’s Office wrote in a motion to remand the case back to state court.

In the suit, which was filed in September, Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings alleges that Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, the American Petroleum Institute and several other fossil fuel companies have known for decades that their products cause climate change, but deliberately deceived the public about those harms and what they knew about them.

[Read more…]

DC: Oil Companies Are Twisting Climate Lawsuit to Keep It in Federal Court

Filed Under: Latest News, Uncategorized, Washington DC Lawsuit

By Karen Savage

In trying to get the District of Columbia’s climate fraud case against them moved to federal court, ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, and Shell are mischaracterizing the suit and do not have a reasonable argument, according to D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine.

In a brief filed Monday, Racine said the case—which accuses the companies of violating D.C.’s Consumer Protection Act with a coordinated, decades-long campaign to mislead the public about the risks their products pose to the climate—belongs in state court, where it was filed in June.

The companies moved the case to federal court shortly after it was filed and argue that Racine is attempting to use the consumer protection act “as a vehicle to force defendants to discontinue or reduce their extraction, production, and sale of fossil fuels around the world.”

Racine pushed back on that contention, telling the court that the companies’ argument for federal jurisdiction “distorts the district’s complaint in an effort to convert this case into something it is not.”  

[Read more…]