News & Analysis
April 1, 2020
After a federal appeals court rejected their efforts to move a climate damages lawsuit from state to federal court earlier this month, major fossil fuel companies being sued by the City of Baltimore are now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the decision.
Baltimore’s Acting City Solicitor Dana P. Moore didn’t hold back in her response:
I am disappointed that the giant oil and gas corporations against whom the City of Baltimore has asserted claims on behalf of its citizens continue to do or say anything to avoid accountability. After raking in trillions of dollars in profits for themselves in just the past 30 years, they now expect Baltimore’s taxpayers to pay the enormous costs for the climate change damage the corporations knowingly caused. Now, they are pushing a procedural argument that has been rejected by the overwhelming majority of our country’s federal courts. As the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously held: “They are wrong.” Let this seep in. And then, let’s move forward with efforts to seek recompense for Baltimore. That is the right thing to do, especially now.
More than a dozen local governments are currently suing Big Oil to recover costs associated with climate change damages, and Big Oil has tried to move many of those cases out of state court, where they were originally filed.
But to date, courts have largely rejected those efforts: four of the five federal district court judges to have considered this question ruled that the lawsuits should remain in state court, and last month the Fourth Circuit became the first federal appeals court to rule on the issue, once again in favor of the communities seeking to hold Big Oil accountable.
