City & County of Honolulu v. Sunoco LP

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At the end of March 2022, a Hawai‘i trial court entered orders denying fossil fuel companies’ motions to dismiss Honolulu’s climate change lawsuit for failure to state a claim and for lack of personal jurisdiction. The orders finalized the court’s earlier rulings denying the motions. In the order on the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the court was persuaded by Honolulu’s characterization of its claims as traditional tort law claims. The court concluded that federal common law did not govern or preempt Honolulu’s claims and that the Clean Air Act did not preempt them. In the order on the motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, the court found that Honolulu made a prima facie showing for specific jurisdiction for the oil company defendants but rejected Honolulu’s argument that there was general jurisdiction as to two oil company defendants based on the alter ego theory.

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In a March 8, 2022 letter, the defendants informed the court that they intended to file a motion for interlocutory appeal of the two orders once they were finalized.

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In a separate ruling, the court dismissed Australian mining company defendants from the case because there were insufficient contacts for specific jurisdiction and “it would be unreasonable to bring a foreign country entity into the forum based only on indirect forum contacts from 24 years ago,” when a local subsidiary that had last engaged in business activity in the forum before becoming inactive.

A Hawai'i trial court denied fossil fuel companies’ motion to dismiss the City and County of Honolulu’s climate change lawsuit for failure to state a claim. The court described the case as “an unprecedented case for any court, let alone a state court trial judge,” but concluded that it was “still a tort case” and “based exclusively on state law causes of action,” primarily failures to disclose, failures to warn, and deceptive marketing. The court distinguished the Second Circuit’s decision in <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/city-new-york-v-bp-plc/">City of New York v. Chevron Corp.</a>, which affirmed the dismissal of state-law claims grounded in fossil fuel companies’ alleged production, marketing, and sale of “massive quantities of fossil fuels” despite their knowledge that use of the fuels would lead to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The Hawai'i court noted that the defendants in this case framed Honolulu’s claims as seeking “de facto regulation” of global fossil fuel emissions, much as the Second Circuit framed New York City’s claims as targeting “lawful commercial activity” in a way that would compel development of pollution control measures, thereby regulating cross-border emissions. The Hawai'i court, however, found Honolulu’s framing of its claims as traditional tort law claims to be “more accurate.” Given the plaintiffs’ framing of their claims, the Hawai‘i court concluded that neither the Clean Air Act nor federal common law preempted Honolulu’s claims. The court found “no unique federal interest” in the alleged failure to disclose harms or in the alleged deceptive promotion of fossil fuels, no “significant conflict” between any “concrete and specific” federal policy or interest and the application of Hawai'i law, and “no concrete showing” by the defendants “that a damages award in this case would somehow regulate emissions.” In addition, the court rejected contentions that the out-of-state or international character of some of the conduct at issue made preemption appropriate. Regarding defendants’ arguments that this case and other climate change cases are based on “artful pleading,” the court stated: “Respectfully, we often see artful pleading in the trial courts, where new conduct and new harms first arise.” The court continued: “Here, the causes of action may seem new, but in fact are common. They just seem new—due to the unprecedented allegations involving causes and effects of fossil fuels and climate change. Common law historically tries to adapt to such new circumstances.” The court directed the parties to formalize the “brief outline” that constituted its ruling and also noted that it would address motions to dismiss on personal jurisdiction or due process grounds in separate orders that it hoped to finish “this week or next.” For more analysis of the decision, see Sabin Center Climate Law Fellow Korey Silverman-Roati’s <a href="http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/climatechange/2022/02/23/in-a-first-for-climate-nuisance-claims-a-hawaii-state-court-allowed-honolulu-to-proceed-with-its-case-against-fossil-fuel-companies/">post</a> in the Climate Law Blog.

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