Anne Arundel County v. BP p.l.c.

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The federal district court for the District of Maryland temporarily stayed its order remanding to state court the climate change cases brought by the City of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County. Although the court found that the fossil fuel industry defendants “have not evidenced a strong likelihood of success on the merits of their appeal,” the court found that a temporary stay was warranted due to uncertainty regarding the timing of the Supreme Court’s consideration of the petition for writ of certiorari seeking review of the Tenth Circuit’s affirmation of the remand order in Colorado local governments’ climate change case. The district court cited the potential for a state court to reach “dispositive and irreversible outcomes” before the Supreme Court rendered a decision in the Colorado local governments’ case, given that the Supreme Court had invited the Solicitor General to provide its views on the Tenth Circuit petition without setting a deadline for the Solicitor General to submit its briefing. The district court therefore stayed the remand orders until further notice.

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The federal district court for the District of Maryland granted the City of Annapolis’s and Anne Arundel County’s motions to remand to state court their climate change cases against fossil fuel industry defendants. The court found that the Fourth Circuit’s 2022 opinion affirming the remand order in Baltimore’s climate case foreclosed all but two of the defendants’ arguments for federal jurisdiction in these two cases. Regarding the first remaining argument, the court found that the defendants’ “materially expanded evidentiary record” in support of federal-officer removal did not address the deficiency the Fourth Circuit identified in Baltimore’s case—that the record did not establish that the defendants’ alleged concealment of the climate harms of fossil fuels was related to the defendants’ purported federally authorized actions. In their second remaining argument, the defendants contended that the case satisfied the requirements for Grable jurisdiction because the case necessarily implicated First Amendment concerns by targeting speech on matters of “public concern.” The district court declined to extend the “slim category” of Grable jurisdiction cases to include state tort claims involving speech on matters of public concern, finding that “[s]uch an expansive holding would raise federalism concerns and counter the mandate for federal courts to ‘strictly construe’ removal statutes.” The district court also denied the defendants’ motions to stay the proceedings pending the Supreme Court’s resolution of the Baltimore case (where a petition for writ of certiorari seeking review of the Fourth Circuit’s affirmance of the remand order was anticipated). The court stayed execution of the remand order for 30 days but said it was not amenable to a further stay on the present record. The parties were directed to establish a briefing schedule for any request for an additional stay pending appeal that would allow the court a week to rule on the request before the 30-day stay expired.

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The federal district court for the District of Maryland said it would reserve ruling on fossil fuel companies’ motions to stay proceedings in climate change cases brought by the City of Annapolis and Anne Arundel County until briefing on the plaintiffs’ motions to remand was complete. The companies had asked the court to stay proceedings pending their petition for writ of certiorari in the Baltimore case and any subsequent merits review by the Supreme Court. The district court in the Anne Arundel County and Annapolis cases reopened the cases on April 27, 2022 after the Fourth Circuit affirmed the remand order in Baltimore’s case. In its letter order reserving its ruling on the motions to stay, the district court acknowledged the “potential expenditure of unnecessary time and resources associated with” briefing the remand motions, given uncertainty about the certiorari petitions, but expressed a desire “to be well positioned to advance the cases expeditiously if certiorari is denied.”

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Anne Arundel County, Maryland filed a motion in federal court in Maryland to remand its case to state court. The County acknowledged that proceedings had been stayed but said it was filing the motion “out of abundance of caution and to avoid inadvertent waiver.” The County said it would file a memorandum in support of the motion after the stay was lifted. The motion previewed the County’s arguments, including that the federal court lacked jurisdiction because the County asserted only state law claims, and that the case was not removable under the Outer Continental Lands Shelf Act or the federal-officer removal statute or based on federal enclave jurisdiction.

On June 1, 2021, the district court so-ordered the parties’ stipulation to a stay of the proceedings pending the Fourth Circuit’s decision on remand in the Baltimore case.