In re Fuel Industry Climate Cases

The California Superior Court hearing the California Attorney General’s and California local government’s climate cases against fossil fuel companies denied Chevron Corporation and Chevron U.S.A. Inc.’s special motion to strike or dismiss all of the plaintiffs’ claims under California’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) law. The court found that the commercial speech exemption to the anti-SLAPP law applied.

In nine climate change actions brought by the California Attorney General and eight local government entities, a California Superior Court denied fossil fuel industry defendants’ motions to dismiss the cases for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court concluded that the moving defendants were subject to specific jurisdiction in California because the plaintiffs’ claims arose out of or related to the companies’ “extensive contacts” with California, which included sale and promotion of fossil fuel products in California and the defendants’ allegedly deceptive statements regarding climate change. The court further found that the plaintiffs, which were “California residents,” alleged that they suffered harms in California as a result of the defendants’ actions. The court also noted that every other court that had considered personal jurisdiction in climate change cases against fossil fuel companies had reached the same conclusion, citing decisions in Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, and Massachusetts. The court further found that the defendants “do not present a compelling case” that exercising specific jurisdiction would be unfair or unjust. The court stated that the defendants’ arguments regarding unfairness created by litigation in multiple jurisdictions across the country “appear[ed] to conflate personal jurisdiction with subject-matter jurisdiction.” The court also rejected the argument that it must undertake a “claim-by-claim analysis” of the lawsuits to determine whether there was specific jurisdiction over each claim.

The court granted the County of Marin's request for dismissal of 13 defendants (Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Apache Corporation, Devon Energy Corp., Devon Energy Production Company, L.P., Eni S.p.A, Eni Oil & Gas Inc., Occidental Chemical Corporation, Ovintiv Canada ULC (fka “Encana Corporation”), Repsol S.A., Repsol Energy North America Corporation, Repsol Trading USA Corporation, TotalEnergies E&P USA, Inc. fka Total E&P USA Inc., TotalEnergies Marketing USA, Inc. fka Total Specialties USA Inc.).