Mayor & City Council of Baltimore v. BP p.l.c.

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On June 3, 2025, the Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, the <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/city-of-annapolis-v-bp-plc/">City of Annapolis</a>, and <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/anne-arundel-county-v-bp-plc/">Anne Arundel County</a> (the municipalities) filed their opening brief in the Maryland Supreme Court in their appeals of trial court decisions dismissing their climate change cases against fossil fuel industry defendants. The municipalities initially appealed to the Appellate Court; the defendants then filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the Maryland Supreme Court; and the Supreme Court issued a writ of certiorari on April 24, 2025, limited to seven questions, the first of which asked whether the U.S. Constitution and federal law preempted “state law claims seeking redress for injuries allegedly caused by the effects of out-of-state and international greenhouse gas emissions on global climate.” The other six questions related to whether Maryland law precluded nuisance, failure-to-warn, and trespass claims in the context of products produced, promoted, sold, and used around the world and whether the municipalities stated claims for public and private nuisance, strict liability and negligent failure to warn, and trespass. The municipalities argued that their claims were not preempted by federal common law or the Clean Air Act, or barred by any constitutional provision. They disputed the trial courts’ characterization of their claims as operating as “de facto regulation” of greenhouse gas emissions. They also contended that their claims were actionable under Maryland law.

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For a second time, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the City of Baltimore’s lawsuit seeking to hold oil and gas companies liable for climate change harms should proceed in state court. In its first decision in 2020, the Fourth Circuit concluded that it could only address whether the case had been properly removed under the federal-officer removal statute and found that the case had not been properly removed. The Supreme Court vacated that decision in 2021, holding that federal appellate courts could consider all grounds for removal when federal-officer removal is one of the asserted grounds for removal. In this second decision, the Fourth Circuit again rejected federal-officer removal as a basis for subject matter jurisdiction based on its earlier analysis and also rejected the seven other grounds for removal asserted by the oil and gas companies. First, the Fourth Circuit rejected the contention that Baltimore’s claims were necessarily governed by federal common law, finding that the well-pleaded complaint rule would bar removal because Baltimore’s complaint did not expressly invoke federal common law and also that it was not appropriate to create federal common law for the issues raised by the complaint. The court found that even if control of interstate pollution, energy independence, and multilateral treaties qualified as “uniquely federal interests” that could justify creation of federal common law, the companies failed to establish a significant conflict between state-law claims and the federal interests. In addition, the Fourth Circuit concluded that removal based on federal common law would not be proper where any previously existing federal common law had been displaced by the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. Second, the Fourth Circuit found that the companies failed to establish Grable jurisdiction because Baltimore’s complaint did not “necessarily raise” any of the federal issues identified by the companies, including balancing of the costs and benefits of fossil fuel extraction or federal duties to disclose. The court also found that the companies “wrongly” relied on the foreign-affairs doctrine in the Grable context as a basis for federal jurisdiction. Third, the Fourth Circuit held that the Clean Air Act did not completely preempt Baltimore’s state-law claims. Fourth, the court rejected the companies’ argument that their operations within federal enclaves conferred federal jurisdiction. The court noted that all of Baltimore’s alleged harms were pleaded “within the confines and boundaries of Baltimore City” and specifically to non-federal lands. Fifth, the Fourth Circuit found no jurisdiction under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, holding that the companies did not demonstrate the required but-for connection between Baltimore’s claims and the companies’ exploration and production of fossil fuels on the Outer Continental Shelf. Sixth, the Fourth Circuit concluded that the bankruptcy removal statute did not provide grounds for removal. The court found both that the defendants failed to show that Baltimore’s lawsuit had a “close nexus” or was “related” to any bankruptcy involving predecessors, subsidiaries, or affiliates of the defendants and also that an exception to bankruptcy removal was applicable because Baltimore was a governmental unit exercising its police power. Seventh, the Fourth Circuit rejected admiralty jurisdiction as a basis for removal, finding that the defendants did not show how their floating rigs and platforms qualified as “vessels” for the “location test” of admiralty jurisdiction.

On the same day that the Fourth Circuit denied the fossil fuel companies' motion for a stay pending appeal of the district court's remand order, the companies filed an application for a stay in the U.S. Supreme Court. The application was directed to Chief Justice John Roberts, the circuit justice for the Fourth Circuit.