A magistrate judge in the federal district court for the District of Rhode Island ruled on four motions to compel discovery in Conservation Law Foundation’s (CLF’s) citizen suit seeking to hold Shell Oil Products US and certain affiliates liable for failing to prepare a bulk storage and fuel terminal in Providence for the effects of climate change. The court noted that it viewed “thorough and thoughtful” discovery rulings by the District of Connecticut in a similar lawsuit related to a New Haven facility as “relevant to the scope of discovery in the instant case.” The Rhode Island court allowed CLF to conduct a deposition of a Shell “metocean engineer” who had authored a case study regarding climate impacts on a facility in Louisiana on the Gulf of Mexico coast. The court agreed with the plaintiff that the engineer “likely possesses relevant information regarding the issue of best industry practices” and found that the defendants did not show any undue burden, and also rejected the defendants’ contention that CLF improperly sought an unretained expert opinion. The court denied CLF’s motion to compel more responsive answers to interrogatories that CLF said were relevant to their operator liability claims, and found that many of CLF’s requests for additional production of documents from non-party Shell affiliates were “overly broad and disproportionate to the needs of the case,” as were eight other document requests. The court did, however, order production of non-duplicate documents in response to some requests for documents from non-parties as well as production of documents in response to four “more narrowly tailored” requests regarding “relatively narrow subject matters.”

Citizen suit alleging that Shell Oil violated the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act by failing to prepare a bulk storage and fuel terminal in Providence, Rhode Island, for climate change impacts.

Conservation Law Foundation, Inc. v. Shell Oil Products US

<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>

Rhode Island Federal Court Ruled on Conservation Law Foundation Discovery Requests in Adaptation Suit Against Shell Entities

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

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

Risks to the ecosystem health of the marine environment, including ocean warming, ocean acidification, and ocean deoxygenation, harming biodiversity, species health, ecosystem services, and coastal community livelihoods.

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.

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.

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.

Rhode Island Federal Court Ruled on Conservation Law Foundation Discovery Requests in Adaptation Suit Against Shell Entities

Risk

Fossil fuel

Finance