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You are here: Home / Archives for Liability Litigation / Minnesota Lawsuit

Exxon Tries Same Arguments to Get Minn. Climate Suit to Federal Court

November 12, 2020 Filed Under: Latest News, Minnesota Lawsuit

By Karen Savage

ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and Koch Industries say Minnesota’s climate fraud lawsuit filed against them belongs in federal court.

In a brief filed Monday, the defendants rolled out many of the same arguments for federal jurisdiction that have so far failed to convince courts in dozens of similar cases around the country.

The API and the companies argue that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is trying to “use Minnesota law as a vehicle to force defendants to discontinue or reduce their extraction, production, promotion, and sale of fossil fuels around the world.”

Ellison, emphasizing that his case centers on consumer fraud, not emissions, said the defendants are misrepresenting the case.

“This case does not seek to limit the extraction of fossil fuels or otherwise regulate greenhouse-gas emissions,” Ellison wrote in a brief filed in September arguing that the case should be heard in state court, where it was filed in June.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Latest News, Minnesota Lawsuit

Why a Tidal Wave of Climate Lawsuits Looms Over the Fossil Fuel Industry

September 23, 2020 Filed Under: Charleston, S.C. Lawsuit, Connecticut Lawsuit, Delaware Lawsuit, Hoboken Lawsuit, Liability Litigation, Minnesota Lawsuit, Washington DC Lawsuit

Exxon argues at its climate fraud trial that its climate risk terms were not deceptive
By Karen Savage

Amid a summer rife with climate-related disasters, the liability lawsuits came like an advancing flood, first Minnesota and Washington D.C. within days of each other in June, followed by Hoboken, Charleston, Delaware and Connecticut in rapid succession in September. Their suits have turned a summer of unrest into a quest to make fossil fuel companies pay for the damages caused by the burning of their products, joining a trend that began three years ago but evolving to match the circumstances of today.

This summer, extreme heat blanketed much of the Northeast, with seven states recording the hottest July on record. Wildfires have swept through the west, destroying homes, uprooting lives and searing the lungs of millions with unrelenting smoke. Residents in Louisiana and Alabama have faced a continuing barrage of hurricanes and storms, dumping unimaginable amounts of rain and misery.

Recovery will cost billions and that doesn’t include what’s needed to protect residents from future climate change-related disasters.

The latest round of lawsuits draws from the dozens filed across the country since 2017, but with a few new twists. They continue to charge fossil fuel companies with public nuisance for producing and marketing a dangerous product, but they increasingly allege the companies acted together to also violate state consumer fraud statutes. And for the first time, they have begun to include the industry’s largest trade group, the American Petroleum Institute (API), among the alleged culprits in deceiving the public. 

“There is a very strong evidentiary basis for showing that these companies knew about the impacts of climate change and colluded to prevent the dissemination of that information,” said Jessica Wentz, a senior fellow at Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law.

Nearly all the lawsuits have been filed in state courts, alleging state law violations. Fossil fuel companies have doggedly tried to have the cases moved to federal court, where they think they will have a better chance at getting them dismissed, but a string of appellate court rulings have pushed them back to state court. The companies have asked the Supreme Court to weigh in, which seems increasingly unlikely as the circuit courts have all issued similar rulings and the Supreme Court usually only intervenes at this point if the circuits have issued conflicting rulings. 

Those decisions have likely encouraged the filing of more suits, a trend experts expect to continue.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Charleston, S.C. Lawsuit, Connecticut Lawsuit, Delaware Lawsuit, Hoboken Lawsuit, Liability Litigation, Minnesota Lawsuit, Washington DC Lawsuit

Minnesota Argues to Get Its Climate Case Back in State Court

August 31, 2020 Filed Under: Latest News, Minnesota Lawsuit

By Karen Savage

Minnesota’s climate fraud lawsuit against ExxonMobil, three Koch Industries entities and the American Petroleum Institute belongs in state court, Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a motion filed Thursday in U.S. District Court.  

The court should also award the state “attorney fees and costs incurred as a result of defendants’ improper removal,” Ellison wrote.

Attorney fees and costs can be ordered if a judge determines “the removing party lacked an objectively reasonable basis” for moving the case to federal court.

Ellison filed the suit in state court in June, alleging the companies violated state laws when they engaged in consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices and false advertising during a decades-long campaign of deception about their role in climate change.

The companies contend the case involves federal claims and moved it to federal court last month, where they think it is more likely to be dismissed.  

It is a strategy used by fossil fuel companies facing climate change-related lawsuits across the country, but their arguments—including many presented in the Minnesota case—have largely been rejected.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Latest News, Minnesota Lawsuit

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Justice Dept. to Argue on Side of Oil Companies in Supreme Court Hearing

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