Supreme Court Rejects Efforts By Fossil Fuel Companies to Litigate Climate Change Issues in Federal Court

Today, the Supreme Court denied the writ of certiorari filed by the major oil companies in a pair of significant climate change cases.  Specifically, the fossil fuel companies had sought review of a decision by the Third Circuit upholding decisions by the respective district courts to remand cases brought by state and local governments in Delaware and New Jersey back to state court.  The fossil fuel companies had originally sought to remove these cases to federal court in search of a more favorable forum, but will now be compelled to litigate in state court.  This result is identical to that in a number of other climate change tort cases, which are currently proceeding in state court.

These climate change tort cases, while featuring a number of individual variations, effectively seek to compel major fossil fuel companies to pay damages for their contributions to climate change under a theory of tort liability, typically sounding in nuisance (among other theories).  To date, none of the dozens of cases filed under this legal theory have yet been successfully prosecuted to verdict--and a couple have been dismissed due to legal flaws identified by the courts--but many are now slowly wending their way through the court system, raising the prospect of severe liability for these fossil fuel companies.

Notably, the fact that these cases will be heard in state court, rather than federal court--as the Supreme Court has now mandated--increases the possibility that the major fossil fuel companies will ultimately be held liable, as the individual state court systems are widely perceived as more favorable to the plaintiffs in these cases.  Developments among the various climate change tort lawsuits are certainly worth watching, as these may have an outsize impact on the U.S. response to the challenge of global climate change.