In a first-of-its-kind decision, a Maryland judge tossed Baltimore’s climate suit against major oil companies on the grounds that it is not the role of the state courts to address a global issue such as climate change.
Originally filed in 2018, the lawsuit is one of more than a dozen similar cases against oil companies including Chevron, Exxon and BP winding through courts across the nation.
Jurisdictions across the U.S. are experiencing the impacts of climate change and are using legal means to extract compensation from oil companies that, they argue, profited from selling products they knew caused environmental harm and brought about calamities such as global warming and extreme weather.
Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Videtta A. Brown said in a Wednesday ruling the gas emissions that damaged Baltimore fall under the federal Clean Air Act.
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“Whether the complaint is characterized one way or another, the analysis and answer are the same — the Constitution’s federal structure does not allow the application of state law to claims like those presented by Baltimore,” Brown wrote in her opinion. “Global pollution-based complaints were never intended by Congress to be handled by individual states.”
Sara Gross, chief of the Affirmative Litigation Division in the Baltimore City Department of Law, said her office will seek a higher court’s review.
The city argued that oil and gas companies were liable for damages because they falsely marketed their products and concealed the harms associated with burning fossil fuels but were not seeking to regulate gas emissions.
“This decision is the oil companies’ dream. This is what they would love to happen to all those cases,” said Robert Percival, a professor and director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
Percival said Brown argued that, even though Baltimore was seeking damages for consumer fraud and disinformation, it actually sought to regulate emissions.
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“These cases were state law actions for consumer fraud because of the oil companies’ lying about the impact of their products and engaging in a disinformation campaign,” Percival said. “The Clean Air Act has no provision for damages and nothing that would allow plaintiffs to recover for consumer fraud.”
Alyssa Johl, the vice president and general counsel for the Center for Climate Integrity, a D.C.-based environmental organization, said the decision was at odds with how other courts have ruled in similar cases, including a Maryland state court that allowed climate deception lawsuits that the city of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County separately brought against fossil fuel companies to proceed to trial.
“Judges across the country have agreed that cases like Baltimore’s are intended to hold bad actors accountable for fraud and deception; they in no way seek to regulate emissions,” Johl wrote in an email.
The decision is a win for the energy companies who have consistently tried to avoid arguing the cases in state courts and even appealed to the Supreme Court, hoping for a ruling that the cases belonged in federal courts. The Supreme Court declined to consider the plea and remanded the cases to state courts.
“Federal law doesn’t provide any damages action, so that’s why it’s kind of the oil companies’ dream. Their objective is to avoid a trial that would reveal what they really knew about their products causing climate change for decades,” Percival said. “They’re constantly trying to get the U.S. Supreme Court to just completely overstep itself and wipe out all state climate litigation.”
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Michael Gerrard, a professor of professional practice at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, called the decision a “setback for similar cases.” In January, a Delaware court ruled the state’s claims against oil companies can proceed but damages will be limited to emissions within the state.
Delaware’s lawsuit alleged the fossil fuel industry concealed the harms of its products, which in turn harmed the state.
“There are cases going in both directions on this,” Gerrad said. “This is mostly a matter of state law, with no uniform national outcome, unless the U.S. Supreme Court steps in and shuts all the cases down.”
When filed in 2018, this was the 13th of its kind to be brought. The complaint sought to hold 26 oil and gas companies accountable for damages associated with sea-level rise and changes to the environment that prompted weather extremes such as hurricanes, droughts, heat waves and extreme precipitation caused by the companies’ products.
Inside Climate News is a partner of The Baltimore Banner.
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