Fuel Industry Climate Cases

The California Superior Court hearing the California Attorney General’s and California local government’s climate cases against fossil fuel companies denied Chevron Corporation and Chevron U.S.A. Inc.’s special motion to strike or dismiss all of the plaintiffs’ claims under California’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) law. The court found that the commercial speech exemption to the anti-SLAPP law applied.

Fossil fuel companies filed a petition for review in the California Supreme Court requesting that the court review the trial court’s determination that it had personal jurisdiction over the defendants. The defendants argued that the case presented “an important legal question concerning the limits of a court’s specific personal jurisdiction over a nonresident defendant for a claim allegedly caused in overwhelming part by conduct outside of the forum State.” An intermediate appellate court had denied the defendants’ petition for writ of mandate.

A California Superior Court granted a petition for coordination of the climate cases against fossil fuel companies brought by the California attorney general and local governments in California and recommended the coordination proceedings be assigned to San Francisco Superior Court. The plaintiffs and fossil fuel industry defendants disagreed as to the selection of the best court in which to coordinate the actions. Some defendants requested assignment to Contra Costa County or, alternatively, to Sacramento County.

The California Attorney General filed an action in California Superior Court against 13 fossil fuel companies and the American Petroleum Institute alleging that the defendants were “substantially responsible” for causing and accelerating climate change and had knowingly concealed and misrepresented their products’ dangers, causing a “delayed societal response to global warming.” California alleged that the defendants had known about the potential warming effects of greenhouse gases since as early as the 1950s and that over the course of decades the defendants had “mounted a public campaign of deception in order to continue wrongfully promoting and marketing their fossil fuel products, despite their own knowledge and the growing national and international scientific consensus about the hazards of doing so.” The complaint also contended that the defendants continue “to mislead the public about the impact of fossil fuel products on climate change through ‘greenwashing.’” California alleged that the defendants’ conduct had resulted in environmental consequences that included extreme heat, drought, wildfires, increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, sea level rise and coastal flooding, and ocean warming and acidification, as well as “cascading social, economic, health, and other consequences.” The complaint asserted statutory causes of action for public nuisance; equitable relief for pollution, impairment, and destruction of natural resources; untrue or misleading advertising; misleading environmental marketing; and unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent business practices. The complaint also asserted strict products liability and negligent products liability claims. California asked the court to order the defendants to abate the public nuisance, including by establishing and contributing to a fund to pay the costs of abatement; to grant equitable relief as required to protect and prevent pollution, impairment, and destruction of natural resources; to prohibit the defendants from making false and misleading statements and engaging in unfair competition and to restore any property or money defendants might have acquired through violations of California’s unfair competition, false advertising, and environmental marketing laws; to assess civil penalties; to award compensatory, punitive, and exemplary damages; and to award costs to the State.

In climate change-based tort lawsuits brought by California municipalities, the California Court of Appeal reversed a trial court order granting Citgo Petroleum Corporation’s (Citgo’) motion to quash service of summons for lack of personal jurisdiction. The appellate court found that the trial court erred in concluding that the municipalities’ claims did not arise from or relate to Citgo’s California contacts. The court found that the municipalities demonstrated that Citgo purchased, distributed, and sold fossil fuel products to California consumers via contractual arrangements with other companies, that Citgo promoted the products as Citgo gasoline, and that Citgo “did not include any materials identifying climate-related risks associated with utilizing gasoline.” The appellate court found that “[b]ecause the complaint clearly encompasses claims based upon a duty to warn and asserts that Citgo failed to do so,” the plaintiffs met their burden to demonstrate a connection between Citgo’s California contacts and their claims. The court therefore concluded that specific jurisdiction over Citgo was appropriate. The court also found that Citgo failed to demonstrate that exercise of jurisdiction was unreasonable.