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Oil Companies Ask Supreme Court to Decide Jurisdiction of More Climate Cases

January 5, 2021 Filed Under: Baltimore Lawsuit, California Climate Lawsuits, Latest News, Liability Litigation, Rhode Island Lawsuit

By Karen Savage

Several fossil fuel giants want the U.S. Supreme Court to make its upcoming review of climate cases applicable to a wider range of those cases, filing briefs urging the court to include cases filed by Rhode Island and several California communities.

The companies—Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Marathon and several other energy companies—last week petitioned the high court, asking it to reverse rulings by the First and Ninth Circuits that have sent those cases back to state court.

The high court has already granted review of a lower court’s decision to place the Baltimore case in state court and oral arguments are scheduled for Jan. 19. The companies are asking the court to hold the new petitions pending that ruling and then dispose of them “in a manner consistent with its decision in that case.” In other words, the companies hope the court sends all of the similar cases filed around the country to federal court, where they believe they will be dismissed.

The newest petitions, which were spearheaded by Chevron attorney Ted Boutrous, a partner with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, mirror a similar request made by Exxon and Suncor last month in a case filed by communities in Colorado. 

The companies’ Colorado, California and Rhode Island petitions all involve the same technical, legal question they presented in a case filed against many of the same companies by Baltimore.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Baltimore Lawsuit, California Climate Lawsuits, Latest News, Liability Litigation, Rhode Island Lawsuit

Exxon Says Calif. Climate Suits Are a Conspiracy, Asks Texas Court to Allow Discovery

October 7, 2020 Filed Under: California Climate Lawsuits, Liability Litigation

The EU could restrict Exxon's lobbying access over its climate deception
By Karen Savage

To prove its allegations that California communities are conspiring against it in a series of climate liability suits, Exxon asked the Texas Supreme Court to force officials from those communities to provide documents and testimony about the lawsuits.

In a petition filed Friday, Exxon asked the court whether the state has personal jurisdiction over the officials, who are from the cities and counties of San Francisco, Santa Cruz and San Mateo, the cities of Oakland, Imperial Beach, as well as Marin County. Attorney Matthew Pawa, who formerly represented some of the municipalities, is also named. 

It is Exxon’s latest attempt to obtain information from Pawa and the California officials. The company alleges they are involved in a large-scale conspiracy to penalize the company for its “views” on climate change.

In the lawsuits, the municipalities allege the company has known for decades that their products overwhelmingly drive global warming, and instead of warning the public, engaged in long campaigns to cloud its understanding of the science. The communities are now grappling with costly climate impacts such as wildfires, extreme temperatures and sea level rise and are seeking compensation for related damages, as well as for infrastructure upgrades needed to protect their communities from future impacts. 

Exxon, which first filed the discovery request in Jan. 2018, contends the suits are an attempt to “suppress Texas-based speech about climate and energy policies.” It wants the officials to turn over documents and submit to depositions that could be used as evidence in future legal action.

Tarrant County District Judge R.H.Wallace, Jr. initially allowed Exxon to proceed with discovery, ruling against the California municipal officials, who have argued that the Lone Star State does not have jurisdiction over them.

That ruling was reluctantly overturned by a state appellate court in June.

“The law simply does not permit us to agree with Exxon’s contention that the potential defendants have the purposeful contacts with our state needed to satisfy the minimum-contacts standard that binds us,” wrote a three-judge panel of the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Bonnie Sudderth urged the Texas Supreme Court to reconsider what is required in order for the state to have jurisdiction over defendants.

Exxon is now asking the high court to do just that.

“Review is necessary to safeguard Texas’s sovereign interest in adjudicating lawsuits that affect the speech of its citizens and a core component of its economy,” Exxon attorneys wrote in the petition. 

Exxon further argues that municipal officials “attacked protected speech and associational activities in Texas” when they filed climate liability suits against the company.

The municipalities “seek to wrest Texas policy decisions from Texas citizens by diminishing the pocketbooks and stifling the speech of its industry,” Exxon’s attorneys told the court. “That is precisely the type of intentionally targeted conduct that gives rise to personal jurisdiction.”

In addition to the California suits, Exxon is a defendant in nearly all of the dozens of climate change-related lawsuits filed against fossil fuel companies by communities across the nation since 2017.

The oil giant made similar allegations of free speech violations in a lawsuit filed to stop investigations by  the New York and Massachusetts attorneys general, who were digging into allegations that Exxon deceived  the public about the risks posed to their climate by their products. 

That case was emphatically dismissed in 2017 by U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni, who said Exxon’s claims were “implausible” and brought “on the basis of extremely thin allegations and speculative inferences.” Caproni called allegations by the company that the investigations were politically motivated a “wild stretch of logic.”

Both AGs later filed lawsuits against Exxon for fraud. A New York judge ruled last year that the state failed to prove its allegations. A suit filed by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is proceeding in state court.

The court is expected to decide whether it will accept the petition for review in the coming months. 

Filed Under: California Climate Lawsuits, Liability Litigation

As Climate-Fueled Wildfires Worsen, Communities Wrestle With Paying the Costs

August 31, 2020 Filed Under: California Climate Lawsuits, Colorado Lawsuit, Liability Litigation

By Karen Savage

Pennie Opal Plant spent much of last weekend anxiously scanning the horizon for smoke from California’s growing wildfires, packing and repacking treasured items into her car, and trying to decide which to bring if she needed to evacuate.

Plant, the co-founder of Idle No More SF Bay, a group led by Indigenous women dedicated to climate activism, is no stranger to climate-fueled disasters, including California’s growing wildfire crisis. But for the first time ever, Plant was preparing to flee from the flames at a moment’s notice. She has lived in her home in Richmond for more than 20 years.

She left once last year because of the smoke—Plant and her husband both have respiratory conditions—but this was different. This time she was afraid if they left, she’d never see her home again. 

“I wanted to make sure that we all photographed everything, if we lose everything, here’s what we had, so proof for the insurance company,” Plant said. 

Fortunately for Plant, her husband, daughter and grandson who live with her, the immediate threat—lightning embedded in the remnants of Hurricane Genevieve that could have sparked an inferno in the dry canyon below—never materialized.

But hundreds of thousands of Californians who have been forced to flee their homes haven’t been so lucky. A record-breaking heatwave, exceptionally dry conditions and lightning from a rare thunderstorm—all made worse by climate change and happening during the Covid-19 pandemic—have fueled some of California’s largest wildfires.

The economic costs associated with the 2020 fires are still unknown, but by all estimates, the amount spent by municipalities to contain the fires is staggering. 

“And that’s not the total fire cost,” said fire ecologist Robert W. Gray, adding that wildfires cost far more than the taxpayers often realize because the costs don’t happen all at once.  

 “Colorado is still paying for the damages the Hayman Fire from 2002 did to its watershed—so the costs are really quite significant,”  Gray said. “Infrastructure damages can occur up to a decade afterward because we’ve taken vegetation off the site, we have a significant rainfall event on a burn scar, and out comes the watershed.”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: California Climate Lawsuits, Colorado Lawsuit, Liability Litigation

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