The judge dismissed the Pennsylvania County lawsuit, alleging climate change related to major oil and gas companies late Friday. [emphasis, links added]
Bucks County General Pleas Court Judge Stephen Corr dismissed the county's lawsuit against energy companies such as Chevron, BP, ExxonMobil and Shell, and ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.
The decision is one of several recent dismissals against climate nuisance lawsuits that Democrats lean into cities and states seek significant damage from energy companies.
“Today, we join the growing chorus of state and federal courts throughout the United States [justiciable] Any court in Pennsylvania” Corr wrote in the sacking.
Bucks County filed a lawsuit in March 2024, claiming that many companies are aware of the climate impact of fuel products while conducting campaigns that mislead the public.
The firing lawsuit argues that the companies deceived consumers into thinking their fossil fuel products are safe, which led to their continued use, further exacerbating the effects of climate change.
“We agree with the defendant that Bucks County failed to claim that it could be released because Pennsylvania cannot apply its own laws to its environmental or interstate air claims, and as a result, we were forced to dismiss the lawsuit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”
“We joined many other state and federal courts and found that the claims made by Bucks County are only within the scope of federal law.”
Bucks County has had several flash floods in recent years, and the county sought damages in litigation to cover the cost of repairing the damaged infrastructure from the flood.
“A simple reading of the complaint proves that Bucks County is truly seeking remedies for harm caused by climate change, a global phenomenon caused by greenhouse gas emissions in every country in the world,” the firing country. Critics of these lawsuits have noticed this for years.
If environmentalists fail to pass the law, they will try to get Judge Crackpot to agree to them.
“Judge Corr’s decision was right because fossil fuel companies comply with the law,” Diana Furchtgott-Roth, director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment at Heritage Foundation, wrote in a statement to the Daily Call News Foundation.
“Environmentalists are trying to use the courts to develop climate policies because they cannot move through most elected officials in the federal or state legislature. However, the method to guide this problem (if it exists) is through the law. If environmentalists fail to pass the law, they will try to get Judge Crackpot to agree to them. ”
In addition to jurisdiction, Corr also said “focus on how commissioners hire attorneys and filed this lawsuit” and found that their actions “are contrary to the spirit of Pennsylvania’s Open Government Act, known as the Sunshine Act.
“The court … did the right thing in expressing concerns about the commissioner hiring lawyers and the way in which this lawsuit was filed, and found “The Commissioner’s conduct violates the spirit of “Pennouncement Government Act in Pennsylvania’s Chevron Corporation attorneys Theodore J. Boutrous, Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher LLP said in a statement to the DCNF.
Dicello Levitt, the county's legal counsel, has a contingent, which means The county government essentially does not pay upfront fees for the company's services, but the company will ensure a certain percentage of any funds recovered in the settlement.
Several other democratic-oriented jurisdictions have filed similar lawsuits, and have hired law firms to assist in climate litigation under similar contractual arrangements.
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