Animal Legal Defense Fund v. United States

Nonprofit organizations and individuals filed their opening brief in their Ninth Circuit appeal of a District of Oregon decision dismissing their lawsuit asserting a constitutional “right to wilderness” that the federal government violated by failing to protect public wild lands from climate change. The plaintiffs-appellants argued that the district court erred when it found that the plaintiffs lacked standing and ruled that no plaintiff can suffer a particularized injury due to climate change. The plaintiffs also contended that they had specifically alleged the particular remedies they sought to protect public lands from the adverse impacts from climate change. In addition, the plaintiffs argued that they had pled sufficient facts to state “a substantive due process right to be let alone … , expressed through solitude in wilderness.”