NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) - Government officials allied with private lawyers hoping for climate change jackpots wanted their cases heard in various state courts, but yesterday a third state judge tossed their claims at an early stage.
New York Supreme Court judge Anar Rathod Patel granted the motion to dismiss of companies like Exxon, Shell and BP, rejecting arguments from the City of New York that they misled the public into using more fossil fuels than they would have had they known the effects on the climate.
The oil industry wanted the cases heard in federal courts to strengthen their defense, which would have included a prior decision in Connecticut's lawsuit against American Electric Power, but the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this decade ruled the complaints were crafted to assert state-law causes of action.
And though SCOTUS recently decided not to intervene in a Hawaii case that allowed Honolulu to proceed with its arguments, Patel days later joined a Baltimore judge and Delaware judge in booting their respective cases.
"Plaintiff provides no legal authority for the notion that statements about unrelated product (e.g., alternative fuels such as natural gas) or technologies (e.g., wind and solar energy are actionable as related to the sale of a different product (fossil fuels)," Patel wrote.
"Not only are the alternative fuels and technologies not alleged to be sold to NYC consumers, but Plaintiff alleges that the consumer good that the Court should focus on for purposes of applying the (Consumer Protection Law) is a different consumer good.
"At bottom, the corporate greenwashing statements do not reference fossil fuel products. Absent any nexus to a consumer good sold in NYC, the Court is constrained to apply the CPL, as written, to the conduct alleged here."
It is the third time NYC's argument was dismissed. Before SCOTUS kicked all cases to state courts, a federal judge there had thrown out the claims. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed that ruling.
Phil Goldberg, special counsel for the Manufacturers' Accountability Project, said courts continue to "see through these allegations," calling litigation a "misguided approach" to addressing climate change. Critics of the suits contend policy by lawmakers is the appropriate response.
"Today’s ruling found the City’s allegations to be ‘distortions’ of the facts, and courts previously called similar claims ‘hyperbolic’ and that this litigation ‘ignores economic reality,'" Goldberg said.
"Last year in Delaware and Baltimore, nearly identical claims were dismissed because their state’s liability laws also were not so limitless and unprincipled as to allow them."
At issue is whether state court judges should have the power to essentially impact the international energy market. Twenty Republican state attorneys general argued the Hawaii case involves questions of interstate and international law that can only be decided by Congress or in federal courts.
Lawyers at firms like Sher Edling filed their complaints to plead violations of state consumer protection and public nuisance laws.
Judge Videtta Brown said the litigation goes beyond the limits of Maryland law, or whatever states other cases are filed in. Most municipalities and states that have filed suit are near oceans, though Boulder, Colo., has also sued.
Early in 2024, Delaware Superior Court judge Mary Johnston dismissed claims based on the state's consumer-protection law, saying allegations oil companies hid their knowledge of climate effects were well before the five-year statute of limitations.
Delaware, like many other government plaintiffs, is represented by private lawyers at Sher Edling working under contingency-fee contracts that could potentially reward them with billions of dollars in fees.
Judge Brown in Baltimore said the U.S. Constitution's structure does not allow state-law claims like those put forth by the City, which, like others, wants money for infrastructure projects to address climate change.
"The explanation by Baltimore that it only seeks to address and hold Defendants accountable for a deceptive misinformation campaign is simply a way to get in the back door what they cannot get in the front door," she wrote.