Mass Tort Defense : Mass Tort Defense Lawyer & Attorney : Sean P. Wajert : Dechert Law Firm : Products Liability, Class Actions, Pharmaceutical Litigation

The federal government (Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal on behalf of the Tennessee Valley Authority, a government-owned company), last week urged the Supreme Court to overturn a court of appeals decision that allowed Connecticut and several other states to move forward in their suit seeking greenhouse gas emissions reductions under a federal common law nuisance theory. American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, No. 10-174 (U.S., brief filed 8/24/10).

Readers may recall from earlier posts that in Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co., 2009 WL 2996729 (2nd Cir. 9/21/09),  two groups of plaintiffs, one consisting of eight states and New York City, and the other consisting of three land trusts, sued several electric power corporations that own and operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants, seeking abatement of defendants' alleged ongoing contributions to the "public nuisance of global warming." Plaintiffs claimed that global warming, to which the defendants allegedly contributed as large emitters of carbon dioxide, is causing and will continue to cause serious harm affecting human health and natural resources. The plaintiffs' theory is that carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the earth's atmosphere, and that as a result of this trapped heat, the earth's temperature has risen over the years and will continue to rise in the future. Pointing to an alleged “clear scientific consensus” that global warming has already begun to alter the natural world, plaintiffs predicted that it “will accelerate over the coming decades unless action is taken to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.”

When thinking about "global climate" changes, MassTortDefense has always been sobered by the fact that humans have been trying to measure temperature consistently only since the1880s, during which time advocates think the world may have warmed by about +0.6 °C -- which is less than the margin of error on our ability to measure the Earth's temperature!

Anyway, plaintiffs brought these actions under the federal common law of nuisance or, in the alternative, state nuisance law, to force defendants to cap and then reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. The district court held that plaintiffs' claims presented a non-justiciable political question and dismissed the complaints. 406 F. Supp. 2d 265.

On appeal to the Second Circuit, plaintiffs argued that the political question doctrine does not bar adjudication of their claims; that they had standing to assert their claims; that they had properly stated claims under the federal common law of nuisance; and that their claims were not displaced by any federal statutes.

In a lengthy opinion, the two judges (Justice, then-Judge Sotomayor had to drop out) held that the district court erred in dismissing the complaints on political question grounds; that all of plaintiffs had standing; that the federal common law of nuisance governs their claims; that plaintiffs had stated claims under the federal common law of nuisance; that their claims were not displaced by other federal law.

In a very minimalist interpretation of what is needed for standing, the Second Circuit distinguished multiple precedents of the Supreme Court which held that to have standing a plaintiff must allege an injury that is concrete, direct, real, and palpable -- not abstract.  Injury must be particularized, personal, individual, distinct, and differentiated -- not generalized or undifferentiated. The Supreme Court has further stated that the asserted injury must be actual or imminent, certainly impending and immediate --not remote, speculative, conjectural, or hypothetical. The court rejected defendants challenge that the contentions of future injury at some unspecified future date are not the kind of “imminent” injury required. The court also gave short shrift to the argument that plaintiffs could neither isolate which alleged harms will be caused by defendants' emissions, nor allege that such emissions would alone cause any future harms.

As we noted here, several defendants have filed a cert petition that raises the important, recurring question whether states and private plaintiffs have standing to seek, and whether federal common law provides authority for courts to impose, a non-statutory, judicially created regime for setting caps on greenhouse gas emissions based on vague and indeterminate nuisance concepts. It also asks the Court to decide whether judges, in addition to Congress and the EPA, may regulate greenhouse gas emissions at the behest of states and/or private parties and, if so, under what standards. Under the Second Circuit's ruling, a single judge could set emissions standards for regulated utilities across the country—or, as here, for just that subset of utilities that the plaintiffs have arbitrarily chosen to sue. Judges in subsequent cases could set different standards for other utilities or industries, or conflicting standards for these same utilities.

While the Second Circuit called this an ordinary tort suit, this litigation seeks to transfer to the judiciary nearly standard-less authority for some of the most important and sensitive economic, energy, and social policy issues presently before the country. Federal nuisance law is neither sufficiently developed nor sufficiently detailed to substitute for actual regulation. Thus, at stake is the financial health and security of numerous sectors of the economy. Indeed, virtually every entity and industry in the world is responsible for some emissions of carbon dioxide and is thus a potential defendant in climate change nuisance actions under the theory of this case. The threat of litigation, and the indeterminate exposure to monetary and injunctive relief that it entails, could substantially impede and alter the future investment decisions and employment levels of all affected industries, and ultimately every sector of the economy.

Now the government brief takes a different approach, asking the Court not to accept the case for full review, but rather to simply vacate the decision and direct the Second Circuit to reconsider two issues: whether the plaintiffs have standing to bring the lawsuit, and whether recent actions by the EPA  to regulate greenhouse gas emissions supplant the reason given by the Second Circuit for allowing the lawsuit to go forward.  Since the initial decision below, EPA has issued final rules establishing reporting requirements for major emitters of greenhouse gases; issued a finding that greenhouse gas emissions from cars and light trucks endanger public health and welfare; and established new greenhouse gas emissions limits for cars and light trucks. In addition, EPA has signed off on a final rule requiring that additional categories of sources begin to track and report greenhouse gas emissions under EPA's earlier GHG reporting rule.  The Second Circuit decision was seemingly predicated on the "now-obsolete conclusion" that EPA had not taken action to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from stationary sources. 

The TVA brief also argues that  that the lower court should dismiss the case based on “prudential standing,” a narrower ground than the case or controversy argument of the other defendants.

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Several electric power companies have asked the Supreme Court to review a Second Circuit ruling that Connecticut and several other states may seek greenhouse gas emissions reductions under a federal common law nuisance claim.  American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut, No. 10-174 (U.S. 8/2/10). The petition for certiorari was filed by American Electric Power Co., Duke Energy Corp., Southern Co., and Xcel Energy Inc.

Readers may recall that in 2004, two groups of plaintiffs, one consisting of eight states and New York City, and the other consisting of three land trusts, sued six electric power corporations that own and operate fossil-fuel-fired power plants, seeking abatement of defendants' alleged ongoing contributions to the "public nuisance of global warming." Plaintiffs claimed that global warming, to which the defendants allegedly contributed as large emitters of carbon dioxide, is causing, and will continue to cause serious harm affecting human health and natural resources.

Because of the procedural posture (motion to dismiss), the court did not really describe the other side of the story, but readers of MassTortDefense know that change is what the climate is always doing as a result of the planet's orbital eccentricities, axial wobbles, solar brightness changes, cosmic ray flux, and multiple other factors. There are numerous plausible terrestrial drivers of climate changes too. While global warming is a serious topic worthy of scientific study and political discussion, plaintiffs' alleged "consensus" on this issue ignores the fact that global mean temperature is only one part of climate, and may not even be the best metric. Moreover, the most important driver of the greenhouse effect are water vapor and clouds. Carbon dioxide is only about 0.038% of the atmosphere, and humans are responsible for only about 3.4% of carbon dioxide emitted to the atmosphere annually, the rest of it being natural.  When thinking about "global climate" changes, we have to be cognizant of the fact that humans have been trying to measure the temperature consistently only since the1880s, during which time even advocates think the world may have warmed by about +0.6 °C -- which is less than the margin of error on our ability to measure the Earth's temperature. 

Anyway, plaintiffs brought these actions under the federal common law of nuisance or, in the alternative, state nuisance law, to force defendants to cap and then reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. The district court correctly held that plaintiffs' claims presented a non-justiciable political question and dismissed the complaints. On appeal, plaintiffs argued that the political question doctrine does not bar adjudication of their claims; that they had standing to assert their claims; that they had properly stated claims under the federal common law of nuisance; and that their claims were not displaced by any federal statutes.

In a lengthy opinion, the court of appeals held that the district court erred in dismissing the complaints on political question grounds; that all of plaintiffs had standing; that the federal common law of nuisance governs their claims; that plaintiffs had stated claims under the federal common law of nuisance; that their claims were not displaced.  In a very minimalist interpretation of what is needed for standing, the Second Circuit distinguished multiple precedents of the Supreme Court which held that to have standing a plaintiff must allege an injury that is concrete, direct, real, and palpable -- not abstract. Injury must be particularized, personal, individual, distinct, and differentiated -- not generalized or undifferentiated. The Supreme Court has further stated that the asserted injury must be actual or imminent, certainly impending and immediate --not remote, speculative, conjectural, or hypothetical. The court of appeals rejected defendants challenge that these vague contentions of future injury at some unspecified future date are not the kind of “imminent” injury required. The court also gave short shrift to the argument that plaintiffs could neither isolate which alleged harms will be caused by defendants' emissions, nor allege that such emissions would alone cause any future harms. 

This petition raises the important, recurring question whether states and private plaintiffs have standing to seek, and whether federal common law provides authority for courts to impose, a non-statutory, judicially created regime for setting caps on greenhouse gas emissions based on vague and indeterminate nuisance concepts.  It also asks the Court to decide whether judges, in addition to Congress and the EPA, may regulate greenhouse gas emissions at the behest of states and private parties and, if so, under what standards.  Under the Second Circuit's ruling, a single judge could set emissions standards for regulated utilities across the country—or, as here, for just that subset of utilities that the plaintiffs have arbitrarily chosen to sue. Judges in subsequent cases could set different standards for other utilities or industries, or conflicting standards for these same utilities.

While the Second Circuit called this an ordinary tort suit, this litigation seeks to transfer to the judiciary nearly standardless authority for some of the most important and sensitive economic, energy, and social policy issues presently before the country.  Thus, at stake is the financial health and security of numerous sectors of the economy. Indeed, virtually every entity and industry in the world is responsible for some emissions of carbon dioxide and is thus a potential defendant in climate change nuisance actions under the theory of this case. The threat of litigation, and the indeterminate exposure to monetary and injunctive relief that it entails, could substantially impede and alter the future investment decisions and employment levels of all affected industries, and ultimately every sector of the economy.

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Late last month, the Environmental Protection Agency signed off on a final rule requiring that  additional categories of sources begin to track and report greenhouse gas emissions under EPA's earlier GHG reporting rule.

Readers will recall the original rule, published in October, 2009, regulated 41 kinds of sources of methane, carbon dioxide, and nitrous oxide ,and other GHG emissions, requiring reporting when the rule becomes effective.  The new rule adds Magnesium Production, Underground Coal Mines, Industrial Wastewater Treatment, and Industrial Landfills, to the list of sources that have reporting requirements.  With this final rule the Agency has taken action on all outstanding source categories and subparts from the April 2009 original proposal for the greenhouse gas reporting program.

EPA promulgated the regulations to require monitoring and reporting of various major greenhouse gas emissions. In general, this national greenhouse gas reporting program is supposed to  provide EPA with accurate and timely GHG emissions data from facilities that emit 25,000 metric tons or more of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per year. This data is supposed to provide a better understanding of where GHGs are coming from and will guide development of the best possible policies and programs to reduce emissions, says the EPA.

Underground coal mines, magnesium production facilities, industrial waste landfills and industrial wastewater treatment facilities that meet the reporting threshold must begin monitoring GHG emissions on January 1, 2011 and must submit the first annual report to EPA by March 31, 2012. These GHG reporting rules are genearaly viewed as the first steps toward implementing GHG emissions limits and related climate change regulations. 

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We have posted on the climate change litigation, including inexplicable decisions such as the putative class action alleging that -- follow the chain -- dozens of oil and chemical companies emitted greenhouse gasses which contributed to an impact on the atmosphere which contributed to a rise in temperature of some parts of the ocean which contributed to making Hurricane Katrina stronger which contributed to additional damages to plaintiffs' property. Such decisions represent a clear and dangerous trend within certain courts to usurp Congress, warp the traditional nuisance doctrine, and plunge the federal courts into what are essentially political questions.
 

Now comes the welcome news that the Fifth Circuit has ordered en banc rehearing of the case. Comer et al. v. Murphy Oil USA et al., No. 07-60756 (5th Cir.). The court issued an order last week granting the defendants' petition for a rehearing en banc, vacating the panel decision from last Fall. The Fifth Circuit panel had ruled that private property owners under Mississippi law may have standing to bring climate change-related nuisance and trespass claims for both property and punitive damages.

The defendants will re-brief the issues by the end of this month, and oral argument appears to be set for the end of May.

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A variety of business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), last week filed a petition in federal court challenging the U.S. EPA's decision to regulate greenhouse gas emissions through the Clean Air Act.  Also petitioning in this latest round of filings are the American Petroleum Institute, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, the National Association of Home Builders, the Corn Refiners Association, the Brick Industry Association, the Western States Petroleum Association, and the National Oilseed Processors Association.

The groups are challenging EPA’s "Endangerment Finding" determination, and asserting that EPA hasn't asked the right questions, or sought the right information, and hasn't met the government's burden under the standards set forth in the Clean Air Act.  The endangerment finding was based in large measure on the scientific findings of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC findings have come under fire since e-mails were disclosed in November which seem to show that some scientists were trying to manipulate the data to falsely show that climate change is occurring.

Raising the slippery slope problem, the petitioners worry that if EPA moves forward and begins regulating stationary sources, it may open the door for them to regulate everything from industrial facilities to farms to even American homes. Such a move would further complicate a permitting process that EPA is not equipped to handle, while increasing costs to the manufacturing sector. According to some published estimates, the “Endangerment Finding” and subsequent regulations will trigger new permitting requirements for more than 6 million stationary sources. These 6 million sources may include 200,000 manufacturing facilities, approximately 20,000 farms, and another 200,000 other sources such as universities, schools and even American homes, impacting every aspect of the U.S. economy. These costly burdens and uncertainty, they observe, will stifle job creation and harm our competitiveness in a global economy.

The organizations note they support a comprehensive climate change policy that achieves real environmental results while also fostering continued economic growth – essential conditions for a healthy manufacturing sector in the United States.  The state of Texas has also joined the list of opponents of the EPA's finding. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce filed a petition already. 

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson had announced the agency finding back in December that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare and that cars and light trucks cause or contribute to the emissions. See 74 Fed. Reg. 66,496.  The agency is reportedly planning to take regulatory action in March, under the Clean Air Act.

The finding responded to a decision in 2007 by the U.S. Supreme Court saying that greenhouse gas emissions fall under the definitions of the Clean Air Act, but that EPA must make a finding on whether they endanger public health and welfare and justify its decision based on science. See Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007).

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Part two of our update on recent climate change litigation.  In our last post, we discussed the well reasoned decision in Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp., 2009 WL 3326113 (N.D.Cal. 9/30/09).  We contrasted it with the somewhat startling (2-judge) Second Circuit panel decision in Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co., allowing a group of states and land trusts to proceed with a so-called global warming tort suit.

In another noteworthy recent case, the Fifth Circuit recently held that a group of property owners in Mississippi can proceed with global warming-related claims. See Comer v. Murphy Oil Co., 2009 WL 3321493 (5th Cir. 10/16/09).  A proposed class of thousands of property owners alleged that damage to their Mississippi coastal properties from Hurricane Katrina would not have been as serious had not defendants' climate change conduct intensified the storm. Along with the Second Circuit decision, this opinion represents a clear and dangerous trend within the court of appeals to usurp Congress, warp the traditional nuisance doctrine, and plunge the federal courts into what are essentially political questions.

In Comer, the district court correctly held that tort suits against electric power companies and other alleged large greenhouse gas emitters should not proceed in federal court because climate change, and tort claims based on alleged climate change, is fraught with national political and policy considerations.  The Fifth Circuit reversed, asserting that until Congress, the executive branch, or a federal agency acts more directly on global warming, Mississippi common law tort rules questions posed by the case are justiciable because there is no commitment of those issues exclusively to the political branches of the federal government.  Thus, plaintiffs had demonstrated standing for public and private nuisance, trespass, and negligence claims; the claims were justiciable and did not present a political question. 

The Fifth Circuit in some ways went  further than the Second Circuit, ruling in essence that climate change-related claims are not limited to injunctions being brought by governmental entities or even quasi-public groups like nonprofit land trusts. The Fifth Circuit ruled that private property owners under Mississippi law also may have standing to bring climate change-related nuisance and trespass claims for both property and punitive damages. That holding may propel additional climate change litigation -- if the ruling stands following likely rehearing motions.

The causation allegation here was arguably even more attenuated than the long, convoluted causation chain in other global warming cases; plaintiffs asserted that defendants' greenhouse gases didn't cause but contributed to global warming, which made the waters in the Gulf of Mexico warmer, which didn't create but then made Hurricane Katrina more intense, which then caused their alleged property damage to be worse.  That stands as perhaps the most attenuated, least supportable, causal link in tort history -- the absence of proximate cause as a matter of law.  The concurrence noted this issue, and would have affirmed a dismissal on this basis.  With class certification, expert discovery, Daubert, and summary judgment hurdles to be crossed, it is clear that this causation issue will not soon disappear.

Ironically, the rash of global warming opinions in cases that had been argued long ago may reflect a recognition of the new administration and a changing emissions policy... in turn, reflecting the political nature of the issues. All readers ought to have profound reservations about the notion, inherent in all private climate change litigation, that the tort system is capable of adjudicating rights and responsibilities on the subject of global warming.

The decisions potentially present business interests with difficult choices: proposed regulations from the administration may be onerous and not grounded in good science; but absent federal action, defendants may risk public nuisance liability in the courts on issues that juries cannot begin to handle well.  

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Today, the first of a couple of posts on the so-called global warming litigation.  We have posted on the climate change litigation before, and here, and we note first that a  federal trial court recently dismissed a global climate change suit filed by Inupiat Eskimos from Kivalina, Alaska against dozens of oil and energy companies. Native Village of Kivalina v. ExxonMobil Corp., 2009 WL 3326113 (N.D.Cal. 9/30/09).

The suit was brought by the village of about 400 people, who alleged that as a result of global warming, the Arctic sea ice that protects the Kivalina coast from storms has been diminished, and that resulting erosion will require relocation of the residents to another village.  (The town of Kivalina is located at the tip of a six-mile-long barrier reef, about 70 miles north of the Arctic Circle on Alaska's northwest coast.) Plaintiffs sought damages under federal common law nuisance, state nuisance, and civil conspiracy theories. They alleged that defendants were a major part of the cause of excessive emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which plaintiffs claimed are causing global warming.

The defendants properly noted that many of the questions raised by the plaintiffs in this suit were inherently political; there are no traditional judicial standards available to adjudicate such political issues. They also argued that plaintiffs lacked standing under Article III because the injury to the plaintiffs was not “fairly traceable” to the conduct of the defendants. 

Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California agreed, finding global warming to be a political issue not appropriate for a federal court to decide. The courts have long indicated that disputes involving political questions lie outside of the Article III jurisdiction of federal courts.  Corrie v. Caterpillar, Inc., 503 F.3d 974, 980 (9th Cir.2007). The political question doctrine serves to prevent the federal courts from intruding unduly on certain policy choices and value judgments that are constitutionally committed to Congress or the executive branch.  Koohi v. United States, 976 F.2d 1328, 1331 (9th Cir.1992).  A non-justiciable political question exists when, to resolve a dispute, the court must make a policy judgment of a legislative nature, rather than resolving the dispute through legal and factual analysis. Courts typically look at three broad factors: (i) Does the issue involve resolution of questions committed by the text of the Constitution to a coordinate branch of Government? (ii) Would resolution of the question demand that a court move beyond areas of judicial expertise? (iii) Do prudential considerations counsel against judicial intervention?

Under the second factor, which was key here, the court concluded that a factfinder would have to weigh, inter alia, the energy-producing alternatives that were available in the past and consider their respective impact on far ranging issues such as their reliability as an energy source, safety considerations and the impact of the different alternatives on consumers and business at every level. The factfinder would then have to weigh the benefits derived from those choices against the risk that increasing greenhouse gases would in turn increase the risk of causing flooding along the coast of a remote Alaskan locale. Plaintiffs ignored this aspect of their claim and otherwise failed to articulate any particular judicially discoverable and manageable standards that would guide a factfinder in rendering a decision that is principled, rational, and based upon reasoned distinctions.

Secondly, plaintiffs conceded they were unable to trace their alleged injuries to any particular defendant.  While they sought to rely on, by analogy, injury concepts under the Clean Water Act, the court concluded that even if the theory were applicable outside the context of a statutory water pollution claim, it is simply inapposite where, as here, plaintiffs have not alleged that even the “seed” of their injury can be traced to any of the defendants. Plaintiffs acknowledged that the genesis of the global warming phenomenon dates back centuries and is a result of the emission of greenhouse gases by a multitude of sources other than the defendants. The complaint further alleges that the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide -- “the most significant greenhouse gas emitted by human activity” -- has been increasing steadily “since the dawn of the industrial revolution in the 18th century, and more than one-third of the increase has occurred since 1980.”  Significantly, the source of the greenhouse gases are undifferentiated and cannot be traced to any particular source, let alone a defendant, given that they rapidly mix in the atmosphere. 

The court thus dismissed the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, both because of the political question, and because the plaintiffs could not prove the companies caused the alleged injury.

The decision is consistent with most prior decisions coming out of the district courts, which generally have viewed these climate change cases as raising fundamentally political judgments.  The decision is a more coherent analysis than the recent, ostensibly conflicting, ruling of the Second Circuit allowing plaintiffs to sue over climate change under federal common law, in Connecticut v. American Electric Power Co., No. 05-5104-cv (2d Cir. 9/21/09).  (It also will be contrasted in our next post with the Fifth Circuit's recent ruling in Comer v. Murphy Oil Co.

The Second Circuit case involved a suit by states and environmental groups against various electric power companies; these plaintiffs made allegations similar to those in the Alaska case, and that defendants were thus harming the environment, the states' economies, and public health.  The appeals court overturned a well-reasoned trial court ruling that the case represented a non-justiciable political question.  

Unlike the Second Circuit, the California district court recognized major distinctions between ordinary pollution cases and planet-wide climate change allegations;  the court was wisely unwilling to confront -- and could not ignore the existence of -- the myriad legal and policy issues relating to imposing liability on a planetary scale. Judge Armstrong disagreed with the appeals court conclusion that traditional water pollution and air pollution nuisance cases provide appropriate guidance in assessing global warming "nuisance" cases.  While a water pollution claim typically involves a discrete, geographically definable waterway, plaintiffs’ global warming claim is based on the emission of greenhouse gases over decades from innumerable sources located throughout the world and supposedly affecting the entire planet.

Fundamentally, such a nuisance claim would require the judiciary to make a policy decision about who should bear the cost of global warming, if it turns out to be a real climatic phenomenon. Though alleging that defendants are responsible for a "substantial portion" of greenhouse gas emissions, plaintiffs also acknowledge in these cases that virtually everyone on Earth is responsible at some level for contributing to such emissions (even you readers). Thus, plaintiffs are in effect asking the courts to make a political judgment that the two dozen defendants named in this action should be the only ones to bear the cost of contributing to global warming.  The Second Circuit, in contrast, in American Electric, tried to draw a highly dubious distinction between a claim seeking a comprehensive solution to global climate change, a task that arguably falls within the purview of the political branches, and a claim "merely" to limit emissions that allegedly constitute a public nuisance -- because the emissions (part of the highly controversial political debate about global warming) are greenhouse gasses and the source of alleged climate change caused by human activity.    

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