A New Jersey Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit last week against major oil companies. The state of New Jersey alleged the companies sold products that cause global warming and misled consumers about that problem. 

It’s one of dozens of similar cases being filed across the country, but the New Jersey lawsuit is only the latest in a line to get tossed out of state court. Similar cases filed by Anne Arundel County and the City of Annapolis, Maryland were dismissed last month, as was a case in New York City. A lawsuit filed by Baltimore was dismissed last summer, and in January 2024, a judge in Delaware narrowed the scope of a case filed by that state. 

Value in filing cases, waging litigation and generating attention

Critics of these lawsuits argue that anti-fossil fuel activists are trying to effect policy changes through the court system, which is not the appropriate venue for setting energy policy. Likewise, critics warn, these cases will ultimately drive up energy costs, especially if they’re successful. These mounting losses, though, won’t deter the activists pursuing this kind of litigation, they say, because the activists’ aims are political and therefore not motivated by any sincere concerns about liability issues. 

“They see value in filing cases, waging litigation and generating media attention. All the things that you would do in a political campaign, this litigation helps provide them that fodder,” Phil Goldberg, special counsel for the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project, told Just the News. 

String of dismissals

In his ruling, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Douglas Hurd concurred with the oil companies’ arguments that the state’s complaint is unconstitutional. 

“As Defendants state in their moving brief, ‘the federal system does not permit a State to apply its laws to claims seeking redress for injuries allegedly caused by interstate or worldwide emissions,’” Hurd explained. In his conclusion, the judge said, “only federal law can govern Plaintiffs’ interstate and international emissions claims because ‘the basic scheme of the Constitution so demands.’” 

Maryland's Anne Arundel Circuit Court Judge Steve Platt dismissed the case by Annapolis and Anne Arundel County with a similar conclusion. “This court therefore holds that the U.S. Constitution’s federal structure does not allow the application of state court claims like those presented in the instant cases,” Platt wrote. 

Platt cited the ruling by Maryland Senior Judge Videtta Brown, who dismissed the climate lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore, explaining that state law cannot address a global issue like climate change. “The Constitution’s federal structure does not allow the application of state law to claims like those presented by Baltimore. … The Supreme Court of the United States has held that state law cannot be used to resolve claims seeking redress for injuries caused by out of state pollution,” Brown wrote. 

"Cannot have it both ways"

In the case filed by New York City, New York Supreme Court Judge Anar Rathod Patel concluded that the city failed to make a sufficient case that oil companies have deceived the public about climate impacts from using fossil fuels. 

“The City cannot have it both ways by, on one hand, asserting that consumers are aware of and commercially sensitive to the fact that fossil fuels cause climate change, and, on the other hand, that the same customers are being duped by Defendants’ failure to disclose that their fossil fuel products emit greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change,” Patel wrote. 

This was the second time New York City’s attempt to sue oil companies over climate change had failed. 

“Whether it's in New Jersey or Maryland or New York, whether it's a state or federal court, they're all saying climate change is an important issue. We need to deal with it, but it's not a liability issue to be decided by judges. It's a policy issue to be decided by Congress and the federal agencies,” Goldberg with the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project said. 

‘May ultimately prevail’

Last month, the Supreme Court declined to review challenges to state and local lawsuits against oil companies seeking to force them to pay for damages allegedly caused by climate change. The previous summer the high court asked the Justice Department to weigh in on the matter. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar submitted briefs arguing that the justices should reject the appeals from energy companies and allow the cases to play out in state courts before the high court reviews them.

O.H. Skinner, executive director of the Alliance for Consumers, told Just the News in December that the solicitor general’s arguments were a departure from what you’d typically expect the federal government to argue. When state or local litigation affects the entire nation or assumes authority over what a federal agency does — for example, the EPA regulating emissions — the solicitor general has historically protected federal authority. Yet, in the case of climate lawsuits, the Biden-Harris administration -- who had an agenda to delay these cases' resolutions as long as possible — argued the lawsuits aren’t ready for high court review.

In her brief, Prelogar had allowed that the plaintiffs may not be successful in state courts. 

“To be sure, petitioners may ultimately prevail on their contention that respondents’ claims are barred by the Constitution—specifically, the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Clauses, the Due Process Clause, and federal constitutional structure—to the extent the claims rely on conduct occurring outside Hawaii,” Prelogar wrote, referring to a challenge to Honolulu’s climate lawsuit. 

Goldberg, with the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project, said in deciding not to consider the challenges that the justices likely agreed that it’s too early in the process for the high court to weigh in. 

“The Supreme Court tends to like to weigh in on cases at the end of the process, not at the beginning of the process. Because they want to see how this is played out. They want to see how all the legal theories got developed and decided,” Goldberg explained. 

Cost to consumers

In 2020, the Manufacturers’ Accountability Project published a report detailing the history of the wave of climate lawsuits, as well as the complex web of dark money supporting the litigation. The web of funding, a Fox News report found, includes the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, the Emmett Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and JPB Foundation. 

The activist groups behind the litigation have plenty of money to file lawsuits, and as Goldberg pointed out, they don’t need to win the cases to achieve their aims. Goldberg said that these cases that haven’t been exhausted will now work their way through the appeals process, and the New Jersey attorney general's office told the Washington Free Beacon it would immediately appeal the ruling. 

The activists' goal is to raise energy costs

It’s also likely that more will be filed, as the anti-fossil fuel activist groups pushing the litigation actively encourage government entities to file them. In 2022, the Rockefeller-backed ENGO Center for Climate Integrity encouraged New Jersey to file its lawsuit, emails obtained by the “Climate Litigation Watch” blog show. 

Even if the cases aren’t successful, they will cost the oil companies that are defending them money, which gets passed on to the consumer. Goldberg said this is part of the plan for those filing the cases. 

“A few of the lawyers on the other side have actually said out loud, that they want to use this litigation to raise the price of energy. That's one of their goals. When you do that, it's going to cost more for regular consumers to heat and cool their homes, to drive their cars, it'll cost more for hospitals to operate, for manufacturing plants to operate,” Goldberg said.