Stevenson v. Delaware Department of Natural Resources & Environmental Control

A Delaware trial court dismissed an action challenging Delaware regulations implementing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and its carbon dioxide emissions trading program. The court ruled that the plaintiffs—individuals who alleged that the increased costs of carbon dioxide allowances would be reflected in their electricity bills—did not have standing because they had failed to establish any financial harm or that success in the lawsuit would result in lowering their electricity prices. The court stated: “Instead of seeking to correct an actual harm, plaintiffs are officiously meddling with Delaware’s RGGI Act.”

The Delaware Superior Court vacated its denial of a motion to amend a complaint challenging Delaware’s regulations implementing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to correct the middle initial of a plaintiff. The court reversed its conclusion that amendment would be futile after the plaintiff (with the corrected initial) along with another plaintiff submitted affidavits indicating that they were personally responsible for payment of electric bills. (The court had previously ruled that the plaintiff would not have had standing as a stakeholder in a company that was a commercial purchaser of electricity.) Although the court allowed submission of the affidavits and amendment of the complaint, it said that the plaintiffs had not established standing and that discovery might show they had not paid electric bills during pertinent times or had not incurred increased costs. The court also denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment as to all the plaintiffs, indicating that it needed to hear the defendants’ expert’s testimony and cross-examination as to financial benefits received by electric consumers.

The Delaware Superior Court denied as futile a motion to amend a complaint challenging Delaware’s regulations implementing the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The plaintiffs sought to correct the middle initial of a plaintiff. They argued that the defendants were aware of the actual identity of the plaintiff and knew that he—not his deceased father, with whom the actual plaintiff shared a first and last name but not a middle initial—was the intended plaintiff. The court said that amendment would be futile because the plaintiff would not have had standing based on his stake in a company that was a commercial purchaser of electricity.