MINNEAPOLIS (Legal Newsline) - A federal judge remanded Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison’s lawsuit over climate change last week to Ramsey County state court.
“Defendants may appeal this decision which would result inevitably in a much longer delay,” wrote Chief Judge John R. Runheim of the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota in his March 31 opinion. “But balancing the hardships between the two parties, and not knowing whether the Defendants will appeal the remand, the Court finds that the State would likely be more prejudiced by a stay than Defendants would be by proceeding.”
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants unlawfully and deliberately undermined the science of climate change, purposefully downplayed the role that the purchase and consumption of their fossil fuel products played in causing climate change, and failed to fully inform consumers of its devastation.
“We appreciate Judge Tunheim’s clear and thorough analysis in today’s ruling, including both his order to remand our case back to state court where it was originally filed and to deny the defendants’ motion to stay our case pending proceedings in other federal courts,” Attorney General Ellison said in a statement online. “This is the 11th federal court to come to the same conclusion — that climate damage and deception lawsuits filed in state court belong in state court.”
The issue will likely be decided nationwide by the U.S. Supreme Court when it determines where Baltimore's case should be heard. Other government officials who teamed with private lawyers fear having their lawsuits go to a federal judge. In fact, New York City's was dismissed by a federal judge, and an appeals court affirmed that ruling.
In the Minnesota case, the citations used to serve the defendants - which include American Petroleum Institute, Exxon Mobil Corporation, ExxonMobil Oil Corporation, Koch Industries, Inc., Flint Hills Resources LP, and Flint Hills Resources Pine Bend - were signed by Leigh Currie, special assistant attorney general in Ellison’s Minnesota office.
Currie is one of two special assistant attorney generals in the Minnesota Attorney General's Office whose salaries are paid by Bloomberg Philanthropies through New York University (NYU) School of Law’s State Energy and Environmental Impact Center (SEEIC) in Manhattan, where businessman Michael Bloomberg was mayor for 11 years.
Ellison was able to tap into the SEEIC’s funding through an application he submitted on March 15, 2019. According to publicly available information, he requested $96,000 and $130,000 annually from the SEEIC to pay two Special Assistant Attorneys General (SAAG), who are described as fellows in their employment agreements.
Currie and Pete Surdo were subsequently hired by SEEIC and planted in Ellison’s office. Both Currie and Surdo are attorneys listed as counsel of record on the June 24, 2020, complaint.
The Bloomberg Philanthropies website defines itself as encompassing the former 2020 presidential candidate’s foundation, corporate, and personal philanthropy as well as Bloomberg Associates, which consults with mayors in cities around the world pro bono.
As previously reported in the Washington Post, the mayor emeritus donated $5.6 million to create the SEEIC in 2017, which offers legal and public relations support to state attorneys general as well as lawyers for the advancement of lawsuits involving the environment and climate.