Juliana v. United States

The defendants opposed the plaintiffs' motion for leave to file a second amended complaint, arguing that it was barred by the Ninth Circuit’s mandate, which included “unambiguous” instructions to the district court to dismiss the case, and that amendments would be futile.

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After the Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc of its decision that youth plaintiffs lacked standing to pursue their constitutional climate change claims against the federal government, the plaintiffs filed a motion in the federal district court in Oregon seeking leave to amend their complaint. The plaintiffs argued that the amended complaint cured the redressability issue that formed the basis for the Ninth Circuit’s decision. The plaintiffs contended that their amended complaint sought “only relief … that is traditionally granted and well within this Court’s Article III authority.” Specifically, the proposed amended complaint sought relief pursuant to the Declaratory Judgment Act and omitted requests for “specific relief,” including a remedial plan, that the Ninth Circuit determined would be outside the authority of Article III courts.

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On January 8, 2019, the federal district court for the District of Oregon denied the Juliana plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration of its November 2018 order staying the proceedings pending a decision by the Ninth Circuit. Addressing questions raised by the plaintiffs concerning the status of the proceedings, the court reaffirmed that the proceedings were stayed until final disposition of the government’s Ninth Circuit appeal.

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The plaintiffs’ December 5 motion for reconsideration of the court’s November 21 order staying the proceedings was still pending at the beginning of January 2019. In a reply filed on December 27 in support of the motion for reconsideration, the plaintiffs said they believed the stays granted by the district court and the Ninth Circuit had both been lifted due to the Ninth Circuit’s acceptance of the appeal and the denial of the mandamus petition. The plaintiffs contended that the district court should continue with certain proceedings, including supervision of “minimal outstanding discovery,” resolution of pretrial motions, hearing a motion for preliminary injunctive relief that the plaintiffs were preparing, and presiding at trial over particular questions that the plaintiffs said were not at issue in the pending appeal in the Ninth Circuit.

On November 21, 2018, the federal district court for the District of Oregon certified for interlocutory appeal its decisions denying the government's dispositive motions in the case brought by youth plaintiffs claiming that the government’s actions and inaction contributing to a dangerous climate system violated their constitutional rights. The district court issued its order reversing its previous denials of the government’s requests for interlocutory appeal almost two weeks after the Ninth Circuit granted the government’s emergency motion for a stay pending the Ninth Circuit’s consideration of a petition for writ of mandamus filed by the government. The government had also filed motions in the district court for reconsideration of the denial of interlocutory appeal and for a stay. In its order certifying the case for interlocutory appeal, the district court noted that the Ninth Circuit had “invited” the district court to revisit its decision to deny interlocutory review. (The Ninth Circuit stated: “The district court is … requested to promptly resolve petitioners’ motion to reconsider the denial of the request to certify orders for interlocutory review.”) The district court also noted that although it had been “aware of federal defendants’ concerns and their interest in pursuing an interlocutory appeal” over the course of the proceedings, the court’s belief had been “that a bifurcated trial might present the most efficient course for both the parties and the judiciary.” The court said it had believed that reserving interlocutory appeal until after the liability phase would allow appellate courts the benefit of a fully developed record. The court wrote that it “stands by its prior rulings on jurisdictional and merits issues, as well as its belief that this case would be better served by further factual development at trial,” but said that it had reviewed the record and taken particular note of the Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit orders and now found “sufficient cause to revisit the question of interlocutory appeal.” The court said it therefore “exercise[d] its discretion” to certify the case for interlocutory appeal and stayed the case pending a decision by the Ninth Circuit. The district court denied the government’s motions for reconsideration and a stay as moot and stayed consideration of other pending motions.

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The federal district court for the District of Oregon granted in part and denied in part the federal government's motions for summary judgment and judgment on the pleadings in the case brought by young people asserting constitutional claims against the United States and other federal defendants. The court declined to rule for the defendants at this stage on the primary claims advanced by the plaintiffs: a "state-created danger" due process claim and a public trust claim. The court dismissed President Trump from the action and also granted summary judgment to defendants on the plaintiffs' Ninth Amendment claim and on an equal protection claim based on “posterity” being a suspect classification. The court said, however, that an equal protection claim based on alleged interference with a right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life would be aided by further development of a factual record.

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On September 26, the defendants moved to amend the deadline for exchanging exhibit lists from October 1 to October 12. The defendants contended that the parties “will be in no position to provide a meaningful or complete exhibit list by October 1, 2018, particularly given the number of depositions, scheduled for the first two weeks in October and the need for counsel to prepare for those depositions.” The defendants indicated that the plaintiffs opposed the request. The court granted the defendants’ motion on September 28.

On September 20, 2018, the federal district court for the District of Oregon issued a scheduling order setting trial dates for the climate change constitutional lawsuit brought by young people against the federal government. The order set the trial to begin on Monday, October 29. The trial is expected to last 8 to 12 weeks (at least through January with court closures for holidays). The federal government’s motions for summary judgment and judgment on the pleadings are still pending, as are motions by the plaintiffs concerning whether the court may take judicial notice of certain documents. NOTE: The original version of this update indicated incorrectly that the trial was expected to last two weeks.

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The federal government filed a notice with the court to inform it of the dismissal of New York City's lawsuit against oil and gas companies and of the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by 12 young people against the State of Washington. The defendants characterized both decisions as finding "that a judicial solution for claims arising out of climate change—like that requested in this case—is barred by the separation of powers." The court also noted that Washington decision had found no constitutional right to a stable and healthy climate.

On September 5, the federal government filed its response to the plaintiffs’ submission on August 24 of a notice of supplemental disputed facts in support of their opposition to the summary judgment motion. The plaintiffs’ notice was based on information in the federal government’s expert reports. The government urged the court not to consider the supplemental disputed facts, calling their submission “untimely and procedurally improper” and asserting that the plaintiffs’ claims “are legally deficient in ways that cannot be saved by any amount of factual development.”

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On August 24, the plaintiffs submitted a notice of supplemental disputed facts raised by defendants’ expert reports to support their opposition to the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, which is pending before the court after oral argument in July. The defendants’ eight expert reports were attached as exhibits to the plaintiffs’ notice.

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In the climate change case brought by young people against the federal government in the federal district court for the District of Oregon, the plaintiffs and defendants filed a status report on August 16, 2018. The issues discussed by the parties included the status of discovery, including the defendants’ service of its expert reports on August 13. The parties also presented their positions in discovery disputes concerning, among other issues, the scheduling of depositions of the plaintiffs (which the plaintiffs asserted must be conducted during the summer before school started or be waived) and a late expert report served by the plaintiffs.

At a status conference on August 16, the magistrate judge allowed the defendants’ extra time to file a rebuttal report. He also set a deadline of September 19 for the plaintiffs’ rebuttal expert reports.

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After the Supreme Court denied the defendants' request for a stay of the litigation, the government filed a notice with the district court suggesting that the Court’s order had two implications for the case. First, the government said the Court’s order was relevant to its requests that the district court certify for interlocutory appeal any denial of its dispositive motions because the Court’s order indicated that the “substantial grounds for difference of opinion” factor for interlocutory appeal was met. Second, the government said the district court should make the “prompt ruling” on the dispositive motions to which the Supreme Court referred.

On July 24, the federal government responded to the plaintiffs’ motion seeking judicial notice of 386 documents. The government said it did not object to the district court taking judicial notice of 286 documents created by defendant agencies that appeared to be authentic. The government took no position on 58 government documents that were not created by defendant agencies and opposed judicial notice for 42 documents “that are not government reports from government sources but are instead reports, news articles, videos, and scientific articles produced by third parties as well as documents which are purported to be government documents but for which no source is provided, or the source is a third-party website.” These 42 documents include documents of international entities such as the United Nations.

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On June 29, 2018, Judge Aiken of the federal district court for the District of Oregon affirmed a magistrate judge’s denial of the federal government’s motion for a protective order and stay of all discovery in the young people’s lawsuit asserting violations of constitutional rights to a climate system capable of sustaining human life. The judge declined to certify the order for interlocutory appeal.

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Judge Aiken denied the federal government’s motion to stay discovery pending the resolution of their objections. In this earlier order, the judge said the defendants had not clearly explained what irreparable harm they would suffer in the absence of a stay and also found that irreparable harm was not likely under the circumstances. The court also said the defendants’ concerns regarding the balance of hardships should be addressed with “specific objections to specific discovery requests, rather than by a blanket stay of all discovery.”

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A magistrate judge in the federal district court for the District of Oregon recommended denial of motions by federal defendants and by intervenor oil and gas trade groups to certify the district court’s denial of motions to dismiss the lawsuit brought by young people alleging that the defendants violated rights protected by the Constitution by allowing greenhouse gas emissions to accumulate. The magistrate rejected the intervenors’ contention that the issue of whether the political question doctrine barred the plaintiffs’ claims should be certified. The magistrate judge said that the court would be capable of granting equitable relief that would not “micro manage” federal agencies or make policy judgments in the event the plaintiffs prevailed. The magistrate “emphatically rejected” any contention that the topic of “climate change” was “formed and determined by political values and is thus a non-justiciable political question” and said that climate change was “quintessentially a subject of scientific study and methodology, not solely political debate” and that courts were “particularly well-suited for the resolution of factual and expert scientific disputes.” The magistrate further indicated that the issues in the case “and the fundamental constitutional rights presented” would not be “well served by certifying a hypothetical question to the Court of Appeals bereft of any factual record or any record at all beyond the pleadings.” The magistrate judge indicated that the federal defendants’ significant admissions regarding the threats posed by human-induced climate change had, “if anything, … enhanced” the plaintiffs’ due process claim and that any appeal would be premature because the taking of evidence was necessary to “flesh out… critical issues.” The magistrate judge also was not persuaded that certification should be granted for the public trust claim, indicating that the federal defendants were relying on an overly expansive reading of Supreme Court precedent to narrow the scope of the federal public trust obligations. In recommending denial of certification on the issue of the plaintiffs’ standing, the magistrate said that the alleged harms to the plaintiffs from climate change should not be “minimalized by the fact that vast numbers of the populace are exposed to the same injuries.” The magistrate noted that numerous factual questions would be addressed at trial (e.g. “Is climate change occurring?” “If so, to what extent is it being caused by fossil fuel production?), and said the defendants and the intervenors “would put the cart before the horse” by certifying hypothetical questions before the relevant factual issues were addressed. The parties were given 14 days to file written objections to the magistrate judge’s recommendation, followed by 14 days to file a response to the objections.

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In the action brought by young people in Oregon alleging violations of their constitutional rights arising from the federal government’s actions and inaction leading to increased carbon dioxide emissions, the federal government and industry trade groups intervening on the federal government’s behalf filed motions to certify for appeal the federal district court’s order denying their motions to dismiss. The federal defendants’ motion sought review of five questions that the defendants said were controlling questions of law for which “there is substantial ground for difference of opinion and for which an immediate appeal may materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation.” The questions involved whether plaintiffs had adequately alleged “invasion of a legally protected and judicially-cognizable interest in maintaining ‘a climate system capable of sustaining human life,”” whether they had adequately pleaded the causation and redressability elements of standing, whether they had a “constitutionally-protected fundamental life, liberty, or property interest in a ‘climate system’ with a particular atmospheric level of CO2” that federal agencies had a duty to protect even if taking action would contravene existing statutes and regulations, and whether they had a cognizable public trust doctrine claim. The intervenor-defendants—National Association of Manufacturers, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, and American Petroleum Institute—joined in requesting review of these questions and also sought review of the question of whether the political question doctrine barred the plaintiffs’ claims. The federal defendants and intervenor-defendants both sought expedited review of their motions and to stay litigation.

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On the day the federal defendants filed their motions, the plaintiffs filed a status report in which they indicated that the intervenor-defendants had not responded to the plaintiffs’ request for substantive responses to the complaint’s factual allegations. The plaintiffs also asked the court to issue an order requiring the federal defendants to provide climate change-related information from federal websites as it existed on January 19, 2017, to facilitate plaintiffs in conducting informal discovery. The plaintiffs said they had served document requests on the United States, the Executive Office of the President, and each of the intervenors in March, and argued that the intervenors should be subject to fact discovery. The plaintiffs also proposed dates for a scheduling order that would allow a trial to start on November 6, 2017, citing “the urgency of the climate crisis and in light of the well-publicized fact that the Federal Defendants are acting now to accelerate fossil fuel development.”

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The federal defendants filed their answer a week before President Obama left office. The answer included admissions regarding factual allegations of climate change’s impacts, but the federal defendants denied that they had caused climate change or specific climate change impacts such as increased temperatures, drought conditions, warmer water temperatures, rising sea levels, and ocean acidification.

The intervenor-defendants filed their answer a month earlier than the federal defendants. The intervenors’ answer denied most of the complaint’s factual allegations, including those related to climate change impacts, on the ground that the intervenors lacked sufficient information to admit or deny them.

In an action seeking to compel federal action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the federal district court for the District of Oregon denied motions to dismiss public trust and due process claims against the United States and federal officials and agencies. The plaintiffs—young people who alleged that excessive carbon emissions were threatening their future, a non-profit group, and “Future Generations” represented by a climate scientist—alleged that the defendants had known for decades of the dangers of carbon dioxide pollution and had nonetheless take actions that increased emissions. The court held that the action did not raise a nonjusticiable political question because it asked the court to determine whether defendants had violated the plaintiffs’ constitutional rights, a question “squarely within the purview of the judiciary.” The court also concluded that the plaintiffs had adequately alleged standing to sue. In determining that the plaintiffs had adequately alleged a due process claim, the court said that the plaintiffs had asserted a fundamental right “to a climate system capable of sustaining human life” and that the plaintiffs’ allegations regarding the defendants’ role in creating the climate crisis, the defendants’ knowledge of the consequences of their actions, and the defendants’ deliberate indifference in failing to act to prevent the harm were sufficient to state a “danger-creation” due process claim. In finding that the plaintiffs had adequately stated a public trust claim, the court said that it was not necessary to determine whether the atmosphere was a public trust asset because the plaintiffs had also alleged the claim in connection with the territorial sea, to which the Supreme Court had said “[t]ime and again” that the public trust doctrine applies. The court also rejected the arguments that the public trust doctrine does not apply to the federal government and that federal environmental statutes displaced public trust claims. The court also was not persuaded that plaintiffs lacked a cause of action to enforce public trust obligations, concluding that the public trust claims were substantive due process claims and that the Fifth Amendment provided a right of action.

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A magistrate judge in the federal district court for the District of Oregon recommended denial of motions to dismiss a suit brought against the United States by a group of young people who alleged that excessive carbon emissions are threatening their future. The magistrate judge emphasized that, on a motion to dismiss, he was accepting all the complaint's allegations as true. With respect to standing, the magistrate judge found that the plaintiffs had established that action or inaction contributing to climate change had injured the plaintiffs in “a concrete and personal way” and that plaintiffs “differentiate[d] the impacts by alleging greater harm to youth and future generations.” With respect to redressability, the magistrate judge said that it could not say, “without the record being developed, that it is speculation to posit that a court order to undertake regulation of greenhouse gas emissions to protect the public health will not effectively redress the alleged resulting harm.” The magistrate also recommended that the court decline to dismiss on political question grounds, and that the court should not dismiss for failure to state a substantive due process claim. The magistrate also recommended against dismissal of “any notions” that the Due Process Clause provides a substantive right under the public trust doctrine. This recommendation now goes to a district court judge, who after briefing will decide whether to adopt, modify, or reject it.

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The federal district court for the District of Oregon allowed the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), and the American Petroleum Institute (API) to intervene as of right in a climate change lawsuit brought by a number of individual plaintiffs aged 19 or younger, an environmental organization, and a plaintiff identified as “Future Generations.” The plaintiffs alleged that the federal government’s actions—and failures to take action—deprived the plaintiffs of constitutionally protected rights by allowing dangerous levels of carbon dioxide to accumulate in the atmosphere. The court found that NAM, AFPM, and API had a “significantly protectable interest” because the relief sought by the plaintiffs would “change the very nature” of their business. The court also said that there was “no question” that the proposed intervenors’ interests would be impaired by any court-mandated regulation to eliminate emissions and that the intervenors’ presence was “necessary to fully and fairly put those issues before the court.” The court was not persuaded by the plaintiffs’ contention that the government was “essentially pro-fossil fuel industry” and would adequately represent the interests of NAM, AFPM, and API.

The United States moved to dismiss an action brought 21 individuals, all aged 19 or younger, to compel federal government defendants to take action to reduce carbon dioxide emissions so that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will be no greater than 350 parts per million by 2100. In addition to the individual plaintiffs, the complaint also named “Future Generations” as a plaintiff. The U.S. contended that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they had not alleged a particularized harm that was traceable to defendants’ actions. The U.S. also said the alleged injuries were not redressable and that the plaintiffs’ claims raised separation of powers issues. The U.S. also argued that Future Generations had alleged no injury in fact. In addition, the U.S. said the plaintiffs had not stated a constitutional claim and that federal courts lacked jurisdiction over public trust doctrine lawsuits because such claims arise under state law.

The National Association of Manufacturers, American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, and American Petroleum Institute moved to intervene in the action.

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