Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe v. Exxon Mobil Corp.

The federal district court for the Western District of Washington granted the Makah Indian Tribe’s and Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe’s motions to remand their climate change cases against fossil fuel companies to state court. The court rejected arguments that there was federal jurisdiction based on complete preemption of the Tribes’ public nuisance and failure to warn claims by federal common law governing possessory land claims based on aboriginal title. The court concluded that even if federal common law could completely preempt certain state-law claims, the Tribes’ claims would not be completely preempted because they were “not in fact reducible to injury to land.” The court also found that the Tribes’ state-law claims did not necessarily raise substantial and actually disputed federal issues about tribal land rights or about whether the Tribes might recover tribal healthcare costs ultimately borne by the federal government. The court further found that exercising jurisdiction over the Tribes’ state-law claims would disrupt the congressionally approved balance of federal and state judicial responsibilities.

Fossil fuel companies removed cases brought by two Tribes to federal court in Washington. The companies contended that the cases were removable because they were brought by Tribes “for alleged damage to tribal lands and natural resources, including those held in trust by the United States, and thus invoke[] … federal question jurisdiction” and also because they implicate federal jurisdiction by seeking “to recoup health care costs that have allegedly been incurred in response to climate change” by the Tribes. The documents for the proceedings in federal court are available on the page for Makah Indian Tribe v. Exxon Mobil Corp.

Tribe's lawsuit seeking to hold fossil fuel companies liable for climate change harms allegedly resulting from the companies' "climate deception campaign."

Tribe's lawsuit seeking to hold fossil fuel companies liable for climate change harms allegedly resulting from the companies' "climate deception campaign."

Tribe's lawsuit seeking to hold fossil fuel companies liable for climate change harms allegedly resulting from the companies' "climate deception campaign."

In the Shoalwater Bay and Makah Indian Tribes’ state-law suits against fossil fuel industry defendants, the Washington Superior Court granted ConocoPhillips and ConocoPhillips Company’s (together ConocoPhillips’s) motion to dismiss the Tribes’ amended complaints for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court previously dismissed the Tribes’ complaints against ConocoPhillips on April 29, 2026, finding that the complaints only pled facts before 2012, which was insufficient for the exercise of jurisdiction over the claims. Regarding the amended complaint, the court found that the plaintiffs did not allege purportedly deceptive statements regarding climate change by ConocoPhillips that targeted Washington. The court also declined to impute subsidiaries’ forum contacts to ConocoPhillips. In addition, the court reiterated that pre-2012 contacts did not relate to the plaintiffs’ claims, found that the plaintiffs failed to allege facts tying a single ConocoPhillips office to their claims, and further found that, even if alleged contacts were not time-barred or if subsidiary contacts could be imputed to ConocoPhillips, “contacts consisting of crude-oil deliveries and gas-station and refinery operations” did not relate to the Tribes deception-based claims. The court dismissed the complaints without leave to amend.