Exxon Mobil Corp. v. City of San Francisco

The Texas Supreme Court denied Exxon Mobil Corporation’s petition for review of an intermediate appellate court’s decision that held that Texas courts did not have personal jurisdiction over California municipalities and municipal officials and an attorney who originally represented San Francisco and Oakland in their climate lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. Exxon sought pre-suit discovery against these parties to determine whether the lawsuits were brought “to suppress the Texas energy sector’s Texas-based speech and associational activities regarding climate change and to gain access to documents that Exxon keeps in Texas.” The lower appellate court found that the parties lacked the requisite minimum contacts with Texas to be subject to personal jurisdiction.

Exxon Mobil Corporation filed a brief in the Texas Supreme Court arguing that the court should review the decision of an intermediate appellate court that held that Texas courts did not have personal jurisdiction over California municipalities and municipal officials and an attorney who originally represented San Francisco and Oakland in their climate lawsuits against fossil fuel companies. Exxon had filed a petition seeking pre-suit discovery against these parties to determine whether their lawsuits were “baseless and brought in bad faith as a pretext to suppress the Texas energy sector’s Texas-based speech and associational activities regarding climate change and to gain access to documents that Exxon keeps in Texas.” Exxon’s arguments included that the Texas Supreme Court should hear the case to confirm that the municipalities’ lawsuits were aimed at chilling speech by the Texas energy sector on climate change and that this constituted meaningful contacts with the Texas forum.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott submitted a letter brief as amicus curiae in support of granting review, writing that “[w]hen out-of-state officials try to project their power across our border, as respondents have done by broadly targeting the speech of an industry crucial to Texas, they cannot use personal jurisdiction to scamper out of our courts and retreat across state lines.”

Exxon Mobil Corporation (ExxonMobil) filed a petition in the Texas Supreme Court seeking review of an intermediate appellate court’s reversal of a trial court order that permitted ExxonMobil to seek presuit discovery against California cities and counties that had filed lawsuits in California to hold ExxonMobil and other energy companies liable for the impacts of climate change. ExxonMobil sought to conduct the discovery—which also would extend to California local officials and an outside attorney—“to evaluate potential claims for constitutional violations, abuse of process, and civil conspiracy” arising from “an alleged conspiracy … to use tort lawsuits against ExxonMobil and seventeen other Texas-based energy companies as a pretext to suppress Texas-based speech about climate and energy policies.” ExxonMobil asked the Texas Supreme Court to “confirm that longstanding precedent of this Court and the U.S. Supreme Court supports exercising jurisdiction over the potential defendants for their improper effort to suppress speech in Texas.”