Platkin v. Exxon Mobil Corp.

The New Jersey Superior Court concluded that federal law preempted State of New Jersey plaintiffs’ climate change claims against fossil fuel industry defendants. The court therefore dismissed the case with prejudice for failure to state a claim. The plaintiffs were the New Jersey Attorney General, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and the Acting Director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs. They asserted eight state law causes of action based on their allegations that the defendants deceived consumers, the public, and decision-makers regarding the climate risks created by their products and that the deception resulted in increased emissions of greenhouse gases that caused climate change impacts in New Jersey. The court said its decision was “reliant upon and consistent with both federal and state courts across the country that have rejected the availability of state tort law in the climate change context,” with “[m]any of these courts conclusions flow[ing], in part,” from the Supreme Court’s 2011 opinion in <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/american-electric-power-co-v-connecticut/">American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut</a>. The court concluded that these cases “compel dismissal of claims seeking damages by transboundary emissions” and found that, regardless of how the plaintiffs characterized their allegations, they were seeking damages for impacts of interstate and international emissions. The court rejected the plaintiffs’ contention that state law could govern in this case because the Clean Air Act had displaced federal common law. The court noted that the Second Circuit had described this argument as “too strange to seriously contemplate” in <a href="https://climatecasechart.com/case/city-new-york-v-bp-plc/">City of New York v. Chevron Corp.</a> and agreed with the defendants’ arguments that displacement of otherwise applicable federal common law by the Clean Air Act “did not somehow render state law competent to apply to this exclusively federal subject matter.” The court also noted that the Clean Air Act had not displaced federal common law with respect to international emissions. The court said the Hawai‘i Supreme Court’s decision was not persuasive because it did not address the “critical point” about the competency of state law to apply when a federal statute displaces federal common law.

–

–

–

–

–

–

–