Press Releases
December 1, 2025
CONNECTICUT — In a win for communities seeking to hold Big Oil companies accountable for climate deception, a state court last week rejected every one of ExxonMobil’s motions to strike Connecticut’s consumer fraud lawsuit against the oil giant, sending the case to discovery and one step closer to trial.
The lawsuit, filed in 2020 by Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, argues that Exxon’s decades-long and ongoing “campaign of deception” about the climate harms of fossil fuels violated the state’s consumer protection law and has inflicted “decades of avoidable harm” and “catastrophic consequences” on Connecticut’s people, infrastructure, and ecosystems.
Connecticut Superior Court Judge John B. Farley rejected all of Exxon’s motions to strike Connecticut’s case, concluding that the lawsuit is not precluded or preempted by federal law and “sufficiently alleges unfair and deceptive acts or practices in violation of [the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act].”
“[T]he fundamental objective of the lawsuit,” Judge Farley wrote, is “to remedy the defendant’s alleged unfair and deceptive marketing practices.”
Connecticut’s lawsuit seeks to make Exxon stop deceiving the public, pay for climate costs facing Connecticut, disclose internal climate change research, disgorge profits made while engaging in illegal activity, and fund a “corrective education campaign” about climate change.
As climate accountability cases like Connecticut’s move closer to trial, the oil and gas industry is lobbying Congress for a legal shield that would block communities from pursuing climate accountability in court. In June, 16 Republican attorneys general proposed creating a “liability shield” for fossil fuel companies modeled on a 2005 law protecting gun manufacturers from lawsuits, and the New York Times recently confirmed that securing similar protections is a priority for the fossil fuel industry this Congress.
Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, released the following statement:
“Exxon has fueled the climate crisis and lied about it for decades, and now Connecticut is one step closer to holding the company accountable for the damage it has caused. Exxon and other Big Oil companies are desperate to avoid facing the evidence of their climate lies, but as this ruling makes clear, the people of Connecticut deserve their day in court. As the fossil fuel industry lobbies Congress for a ‘get-out-jail-free’ card in cases like Connecticut’s, it’s critical for elected officials to stand up and protect communities’ access to the courts.”
Background on U.S. Climate Accountability Lawsuits Against Big Oil:
Connecticut is now one of a growing communities across the U.S. — including Massachusetts, Vermont, Minnesota; Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, and Boulder, Colorado — whose climate deception lawsuits against Big Oil are advancing toward discovery and trial after courts denied the companies’ motions to dismiss them.
Exxon is currently asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider one such ruling from the Colorado Supreme Court. Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a “highly unusual” petition from 19 state attorneys general that sought to stop five states, including Connecticut, from suing oil majors in their own state courts for lying to the public about how their products fuel climate change.
Ten U.S. states — California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawai`i, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont — and the District of Columbia, along with dozens of city, county, and tribal governments in California, Colorado, Hawai`i, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Puerto Rico, have active lawsuits to hold major oil and gas companies accountable for deceiving the public about their products’ role in climate change. These cases collectively represent more than 1 in 4 people living in the United States. Last year, the attorney general of Michigan announced plans to take fossil fuel companies to court.