ExxonMobil Loses Appeal In NY State Court; Can No Longer Challenge MA AG In Federal Court
ExxonMobil lost its appeal on Tuesday to throw out two cases related to its public disclosure of climate change risks. The oil giant fought a case against New York Attorney General Letitia James that the attorney general had already declined to pursue after a New York state judge ruled in favor of ExxonMobil. A three-judge panel for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled against ExxonMobil in its pursuit against James, explicitly citing the fact that ExxonMobil chose to pursue further legal action when matters were already resolved. “Exxon should have understood that its voluntary actions in state court—which, again, facilitated the end of the complained-of investigation and opened to Exxon the now-realized possibility of prevailing on the enforcement action—risked mooting this appeal," Judges Amalya Kearse, Richard Sullivan, and Joseph Bianco wrote.
In the case against Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, the judges ruled against ExxonMobil because the case opened by Healey occurred in state court but the company challenged her in federal court. ExxonMobil can now no longer challenge Healey in federal court because of its failed appeal. Healey’s lawsuit, which asserts that ExxonMobil misled investors and the general public about climate change, was initially filed in 2019 and is still pending. In the complaint, Healey argues that “in order to increase its short-term profits, stock price, and access to capital, ExxonMobil has been dishonest with investors about the material climate-driven risks to its business and with consumers about how fossil fuel products cause climate change—all in violation of Massachusetts state law.” That law includes text criminalizing “unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices,” which Healey claims is ExxonMobil’s bread and butter when it comes to climate disclosure.
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During a 2021 “Ask the AG” segment for Boston Public Radio, Healey pushed back against another bogus claim by ExxonMobil: that somehow lying about and denying climate change is protected speech under the First Amendment. “For far too long these, these corporations have tried to use the First Amendment to shield unlawful activity, serious fraud and misrepresentation both to the investor and shareholder, public as well as to consumers, which is what we allege that ExxonMobil did.
“My team brought a case that laid bare the lies that Exxon told ear after year, decade after decade. I mean, our investigation showed that researchers as far back as the 1970s from Exxon—Exxon’s own scientists—predicted CO2 levels today and predicted that this was going to be the trajectory. And instead of addressing that back in the 70’s or 80’s, they took the turn to just block, lie, misrepresent, and try to just make the case that this wasn’t so, including going out and hiring a bunch of so-called ‘scientists and experts’ to basically become climate change deniers,” Healey said.
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https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/16/2086131/-ExxonMobil-loses-appeal-to-stop-climate-probes-from-moving-forward