The Colorado District Court in Boulder County allowed the City of Boulder and Boulder County to proceed with climate change-based common law claims against three energy companies but dismissed the Canadian parent company of one of those defendants from the lawsuit and dismissed, without prejudice, a claim under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act (CCPA). The local governments allege that the companies concealed and misrepresented the climate change impacts of fossil fuel products while continuing to market and sell the products, leading to injuries from extreme weather, wildfires, and other climate change impacts. The court first addressed personal jurisdiction, finding that the local governments did not establish that Exxon Mobil Corporation (Exxon) consented to general jurisdiction in Colorado courts but that the local governments did show specific jurisdiction over Exxon. Although the court said it indisputably had personal jurisdiction over the owner of an oil and gas refinery in Colorado, the court dismissed the owner’s Canadian parent entity for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court next considered the companies’ preemption arguments and concluded that neither the federal common law nor the Clean Air Act preempted the local governments’ claims. The court also rejected the energy companies’ contentions that the claims were preempted because they interfered with the federal government’s foreign affairs power, violated separation of powers and federalism principles, or violated the dormant Commerce Clause’s extraterritoriality doctrine, the Due Process Clause, or the First Amendment. The court then concluded that the local governments had adequately alleged an injury in fact to establish standing. The court dismissed the claim under the Colorado Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) as time-barred because the alleged specific misleading and deceptive communications to the public were made more than four years before the lawsuit was filed and there were insufficient factual allegations regarding whether the governments filed their claim within three years after they discovered or should have discovered the alleged misleading and deceptive communications. (As noted below, the dismissal of the CCPA claim was without prejudice.) The court concluded, however, that statutes of limitations did not bar the governments’ common law tort claims because they were subject to the continuing tort doctrine. On the merits, the court rejected the energy companies’ arguments that the governments did not sufficiently plead causation. The court further found that the local governments plausibly alleged causes of action for private and public nuisance, trespass, and civil conspiracy claims. The court declined to grant the motion to dismiss the unjust enrichment claim because the motion did not include a separate section elaborating on the challenge to this claim. The court dismissed the CCPA claim without prejudice for failure to meet heightened pleading standards for fraud-based claims. The local governments were granted leave to amend by August 8, 2024 to more particularly plead the CCPA claim.

Action by Colorado local governments seeking damages and other relief from fossil fuel companies for climate change harms.

Board of County Commissioners of Boulder County v. Suncor Energy (U.S.A.), Inc.

<p>This entry was provided by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. Please see the terms of use for citation and licensing of third party data.</p>

Colorado Trial Court Denied Motions to Dismiss Local Governments’ Common Law Climate Claims Against Energy Companies; Canadian Company and Consumer Protection Law Claim Dismissed

Filed

The Climate Litigation Database

Find climate change litigation data and indicators for {text}.

{text} litigation

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law provides Climate Litigation Database, a comprehensive database of US and Global climate change caselaw

Quickly and easily search through the complete text of thousands of climate change law and policy documents from every country.

Search the Climate Litigation Database

An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives

Financial support to help individuals manage the effects of unexpected events, securing their livelihoods and increasing the resilience of people and businesses to the changing climate. It’s especially vital in developing regions where everyday risks, climate-related weather extremes, or crop failures can push people into poverty. Without insurance, people may have to resort to selling assets or cutting consumption to cope with losses.

Codes and standards are regulatory instruments that specify minimum standards to protect health and safety. This ranges from performance standards, which prescribe outcomes while allowing flexibility to achieve compliance, to the more prescriptive approach of technology-specific standards.

Zoning and spatial planning are both methods for guiding the distribution of people and activities in a space, and are regulatory restriction.

A ban is a legal action that prevents the sale or supply of a product or service, or that recalls a product from the market. Examples are bans on SF6, greenwashing, fossil fuel advertisement or single-use plastics.

Either money or something of monetary value is transferred between two or more organisations, people or countries.

Hot temperature extremes are daily maximum temperatures  that were exceeded on average once in a decade or once in 50 years, and includes heatwaves.

A long-lived, colourless gas, chiefly emitted from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation and cement production.

Actions to reduce emissions in energy generation and supply.

Extreme weather refers to events where a weather variable exceeds (or falls below) a threshold. Meaning it is significantly different from the average or usual weather pattern.

A drought is an extended period of unusually dry weather marked by a significant and sustained lack of precipitation, falling below a specific threshold over a large area for more than a month

Terrestrial means "of the earth" and relates to the risks to ecological system that includes all living organisms and their interactions within land-based environments, such as forests, grasslands, and deserts.

Air pollution involves harmful contaminants in the air, affecting both indoor and outdoor environments. It can lead to health issues like respiratory diseases and heart problems, and climate impacts such as global warming. Pollutants can damage plants, trees, habitats, and water bodies like rivers and lakes.

Oil is a combustible liquid fossil fuel composed mainly of hydrocarbons, occurring as crude oil and refined into petroleum products such as petrol, diesel and kerosene.

Fossil gas, commonly known as natural gas, is a fossil fuel consisting chiefly of methane with smaller amounts of other hydrocarbons and trace gases, found in underground deposits.

Coal is a combustible sedimentary rock formed from carbonised plant matter, rich in carbon and hydrocarbons, and occurring in several main types including hard coal and brown coal.

People with different national or cultural traditions from the dominant population

Social and cultural groups that share collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy or from which they have been displaced

Activities of industries that extract natural resources, such as mining, oil, and gas, for commercial use.

The activities of industries that transforms raw materials into finished goods through industrial processes.

Activities that involve planning, designing and building infrastructure, residential, and commercial structures.

This sector involves activities to move goods and people, alongside the storage of products.

This sector creates and distributes information and entertainment through television, radio, print, and digital platforms.

Activities of government agencies and institutions that provide public services, enforce laws and manage public resources.

Climate change can have a range of impacts on technological system. Extreme weather events can cause infrastructure failures like power outages or damage to roads and bridges, as well as the impacts from waste following natural disasters. Human activities also cause technological impacts, such as the risks posed by oil spillage and leaks.

Any substance with chemical properties that can cause physical harm to people or damage the environment, including ammonia, carbon monoxide, phosphine, chlorine, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, pesticides, dioxins, microplastics, benzene, asbestos, aflatoxins, fluoride, methanol, and toxins from marine sources.

Slow onset events evolve gradually from incremental changes over many years or from increased frequency or intensity of recurring events. As defined in the Cancun Adaptation Framework (2010), slow onset events include risks and impacts from rising temperatures, desertification, biodiversity loss, land and forest degradation, glacial retreat, ocean acidification, sea level rise, and salinization.

Heavy precipitation refers to any form of weather where substances fall from the sky, including rain, snow, sleet, or hail.

The cryosphere is the frozen part of the Earth—it includes sea ice, glaciers, snow, and ice sheets. It helps regulate the climate and weather by reflecting sunlight. Rising temperatures are causing melting, leading to sea ice loss, glacier collapse, and glacier landslides and avalanches. This threatens the livelihoods of around 700 million people who rely on the cryosphere for food, water security, and cultural practices.

Colorado Trial Court Denied Motions to Dismiss Local Governments’ Common Law Climate Claims Against Energy Companies; Canadian Company and Consumer Protection Law Claim Dismissed

Policy instrument

Risk

Impacted group

Renewable energy

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector

Finance