Dawson v. Murphy

In a lawsuit alleging that the New Jersey Pension Fund’s investments in oil and gas companies violated the plaintiffs’ right to a stable environment under the New Jersey Constitution, the New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed a trial court order denying their motion to amend their complaint under the New Jersey Civil Rights Act (NJCRA) to add a substantive due process claim. The original complaint alleged that the State violated the public trust doctrine by investing in companies that the State had alleged were engaged in destruction of public assets in the New Jersey attorney general’s climate change <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/platkin-v-exxon-mobil-corp/">lawsuit</a> against fossil fuel companies. The plaintiffs also asserted breach of duty to pension beneficiaries. In a nonprecedential opinion, the appellate court concluded that denial of the motion to amend was proper because amendment would have been a “fruitless endeavor.” The court stated that “relying on the Public Trust Doctrine to find a fundamental substantive due process right to a stable environment takes us far afield from our historic applications of the Public Trust Doctrine so far,” which included disputes over access to and ownership and regulation of natural resources such as the shoreline. The court further found that even if the public trust doctrine related to harm and danger to natural resources, a fundamental right to “a stable environment” was “far broader than the right to prevent public-trust assets from environmental harm” and could not serve as a basis for a NJCRA claim. The appellate court also found that the pension statutes did not provide a basis for finding a fundamental right to a stable climate. In addition, the court declined to remand the proceeding for review of whether the pension fund’s investments in oil and gas companies were arbitrary and capricious in light of State policies on climate change. The court concluded that discretionary investments by the Director of the Division of Investments were nonjusticiable political questions.