On May 1, 2024, the City and County of Honolulu and the Honolulu Board of Water Supply (Honolulu) filed their brief responding to fossil fuel companies’ petitions for writ of certiorari seeking U.S. Supreme Court review of the Hawai‘i Supreme Court’s decision affirming the denial of the companies’ motions to dismiss Honolulu’s climate change case. Honolulu alleges that the defendants’ concealment and promotion of false and misleading information about their products’ contribution to climate change caused climate-related impacts. In the brief opposing certiorari, Honolulu first argued that the Court lacked jurisdiction to review the Hawai‘i Supreme Court’s interlocutory decision, which did not satisfy any exception to the statutory provision making certiorari review of state high court decisions available only from final judgments or decrees. Honolulu argued that even if the Court had jurisdiction, the petitions did not identify a “cert-worthy split” because the cases identified by the companies as conflicting, including the Second Circuit’s decision in City of New York v. Chevron Corp., involved imposition of liability based on emissions, while Honolulu’s case sought to impose liability based on the defendants’ failures to warn, failures to disclose, and deceptive marketing regarding their products. In addition, Honolulu argued that denying certiorari was appropriate because the decision below correctly rejected preemption defenses based on federal common law and “constitutional structure,” on the Clean Air Act, and on interference with federal authority over foreign affairs. Honolulu also contended that even if the Court had jurisdiction to review, the interlocutory decision was a “particularly poor vehicle for considering petitioners’ preemption defenses” because of the lack of finality. Honolulu argued that “benefits of percolation weigh heavily in favor of denying certiorari” because multiple state courts were evaluating the preemption defenses and the Court had recognized that the “collective wisdom” of lower courts was especially important when certiorari petitions raise issues of first impression.

Lawsuit seeking damages and other relief from fossil fuel companies for alleged conduct that the City and County of Honolulu contends actually and proximately caused climate change impacts.

Sunoco LP v. City & County of Honolulu

<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>

Honolulu Urged Supreme Court to Deny Fossil Fuel Companies’ Request for Review of Hawai‘i Supreme Court Decision Allowing Climate Deception and Failure to Warn Claims to Proceed

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

People who are less able to respond to the effects of climate change due to having limited financial or physical assets

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.

The processes through which enterprises can identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their actual and potential adverse impacts. Due diligence is the idea that reasonable precautions should be taken to avoid causing harm to people, the environment, or society. It also involves identifying and mitigating risks before they occur.

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.

Actions to reduce emissions in energy generation and supply.

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.

People who have left their homes, whether through force, voluntarily, or a mixture of both

woman and genders outside of the gender binary

Any compulsory, unrequited payment to the government levied on corporations or individuals. This can be for environmental reasons, such as introducing a Carbon tax to set a price that emitters must pay for the greenhouse gases they emit.

This sector involves the wholesale and retail selling of goods.

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.

Activities of businesses and institutions that provide financial services and products to individuals and organisations.

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.

Honolulu Urged Supreme Court to Deny Fossil Fuel Companies’ Request for Review of Hawai‘i Supreme Court Decision Allowing Climate Deception and Failure to Warn Claims to Proceed

Policy instrument

Risk

Impacted group

Fossil fuel

Greenhouse gas

Economic sector