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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.”  

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D.C. Makes Its Argument for Hearing Climate Case in Local Court

Filed Under: Latest News, Liability Litigation, Washington DC Lawsuit

By Karen Savage

Four fossil fuel companies told a U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. on Friday that D.C.’s climate fraud case filed against them belongs in federal court, despite rulings to the contrary by multiple federal and appellate courts in similar cases across the country.

ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron and Shell contend thatD.C. attorney general Karl Racine “omitted the language of federal law” from his complaint, which was filed in June, to avoid federal jurisdiction in the case. 

Racine alleges the companies knew as early as the 1950s that emissions from their products cause climate change, but violated D.C.’s consumer protection act by engaging in a decades-long campaign to cast doubt on climate research in order to protect their profits.

The companies, which moved D.C.’s case to federal court shortly after it was filed, maintain that Racine is attempting to use D.C.’s 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 in August filed a motion to return the case to state court, arguing that while the companies’ alleged deception is a violation of district law, it does not involve federal claims. The companies’ latest filing is in opposition to that motion.

This is the latest skirmish in an ongoing battle over whether D.C.’s case—and dozens of climate change-related cases filed by municipalities across the country—should be heard in state court, where nearly all were filed, or in federal court, where the companies think they have a better chance of winning.  

Thus far, the courts have not been persuaded by the companies’ arguments, but the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to weigh in on a technicality related to the appellate courts’ review of lower court rulings in Baltimore’s liability case. A date for arguments has not yet been set.

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

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

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.

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