The Supreme Court will review a narrow issue in Baltimore’s climate damages case. Here’s what it does (and doesn’t) mean.

Big Oil is fighting a barrage of lawsuits in courts across the country for deceiving the public about climate change and the damages caused by their products. The industry has done everything in its power to delay these lawsuits in order to evade accountability. 

Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review a narrow procedural issue in one of the cases brought by the City of Baltimore. The high court’s decision could have broader implications for similar lawsuits from more than 20 communities. 

Here’s what you need to know:  

What’s the status of Baltimore’s climate lawsuit? 

Baltimore is suing 26 major oil and gas companies, including BP, Exxon, Chevron, and Shell, in an attempt to make the companies pay for climate change damages that resulted from the companies’ products and their decades-long campaigns of climate deception. 

The lawsuit, Mayor and City Council of Baltimore v. BP P.L.C., et al., was filed in state court in 2018, but, like similar climate liability cases, it has been bogged down because of a procedural issue: whether the case should proceed in state court, where it was originally filed, or in federal court, where the Big Oil defendants believe they have a better chance of getting the case dismissed. 

A federal district court agreed with the City of Baltimore that its case belongs in state court. The court rejected all eight arguments the oil companies put forward as bases for the case to be removed from state court to federal court. In March, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it had jurisdiction to review only one of the eight arguments rejected by the district court, and affirmed the lower court’s decision on that basis.

What is Big Oil asking the Supreme Court to review? 

The Big Oil defendants argue that the Fourth Circuit has the authority to review all of their arguments for why the case belongs in federal court.

The Fourth Circuit found that its scope of review of the federal/state court question was limited to the so-called “federal officer removal” statute, under which a case can be moved from state to federal court if a defendant acted with or on behalf of the federal government. The Fourth Circuit, like the district court below it, ruled that the Big Oil defendants did not meet that requirement. 

Now Big Oil is asking the Supreme Court to instruct the Fourth Circuit to review the other seven arguments rejected by the district court, as well.

What could a Supreme Court ruling mean for Baltimore and other accountability lawsuits? 

The narrow question before the Supreme Court will not determine whether climate liability cases will proceed in state or federal court. However, the Supreme Court’s decision on this narrow issue will set a nationwide precedent that will clarify what issues are subject to appeal in similar cases. 

Two other federal appeals courts — the Ninth and the Tenth Circuits — agreed with the Fourth Circuit earlier this year when they ruled that appeals courts could only consider the question of “federal officer removal” and that climate damages cases in California and Colorado should proceed in state court.

The Baltimore and California cases, now in state court, have been put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision on this procedural issue. The Colorado case, and others, are still proceeding in state court. 

The bad news for climate accountability is that this will delay some cases seeking to make Big Oil pay their fair share. 

But a win for Big Oil on this narrow question wouldn’t mean that Baltimore’s case and others would automatically be moved to federal court. Instead, it would simply send the case back to the appeals courts, which would have to review a wider range of arguments the court hadn’t previously considered. The appeals courts could consider these other arguments and agree with the lower courts – that the cases belong in state court. 

The good news is that the Supreme Court now has the opportunity to address and resolve this procedural issue once and for all. If the high court agrees with the three appeals courts that have unanimously found they have limited review, all circuit courts will be bound by that decision, thus positioning all climate liability cases on a faster path to trial – where Big Oil’s lies and deception will be laid bare for the world to see.