The Maryland Supreme Court affirmed the dismissal of three climate lawsuits Tuesday – filed by Baltimore, Anne Arundel County, and Annapolis – delivering a clean rejection of the legal theories driving the nationwide climate litigation campaign.
The timing couldn’t be more consequential. By siding with energy companies on the merits, Maryland’s high court has created a direct split with state supreme courts in Colorado and Hawaii – strengthening the case for the U.S. Supreme Court to reach the merits of Boulder’s nearly identical climate lawsuit when it comes before the Court later this year.
Double Whammy: Dismissed on Federal Grounds – and State Grounds Too
Writing on behalf of the 6-1 majority, Justice Brynja M. Booth delivered a clean sweep against every theory the climate litigation campaign has thrown at the courts – ruling that these claims fail under federal law, and under state law too.
The court firmly dismissed plaintiffs’ attempts to reframe their sweeping federal claims as local matters, making clear that such claims fall squarely within the domain of federal law:
“We are unpersuaded by the local governments’ myopic view of their claims or their attempt to ignore or minimize the effect that a significant damages award would have on both domestic and international attempts to regulate pollution—matters which are solely within the purview of federal law.” (Emphasis added)
The court was equally clear that local governments lack the basic jurisdictional authority to police global conduct:
“The local governments cannot escape this inescapable conclusion: they are seeking to apply Maryland law to regulate conduct that occurs outside their jurisdictional borders, as well as within the State’s borders. The local governments’ police powers do not extend beyond their respective borders, and certainly do not authorize the policing of global conduct.” (Emphasis added)
But the majority didn’t stop at federal preemption. It ruled that even if federal law didn’t preempt these claims entirely, the plaintiffs still had no case. Their nuisance, trespass, and failure-to-warn theories each failed independently under Maryland state law, leaving plaintiffs with no viable path forward in any court:
“Even if the local governments’ state law claims were not displaced or preempted by federal law, the local governments failed to state legally cognizable claims under state law for public nuisance, private nuisance, trespass, and negligent and strict liability failure to warn.”
The opinion also delivered a direct rebuke to the plaintiffs’ core liability theory: that the production and sale of oil and natural gas is a liability-inducing event:
“No single extraction decision, no single sale of fuel, and no single consumer transaction creates a foreseeable risk of harm to any identifiable person.”
That language echoes warnings from other courts. In South Carolina, a judge dismissed Charleston’s climate lawsuit by flagging the same problem: accepting plaintiffs’ theory would open the door to “boundless” liability.
Maryland Hands SCOTUS a Split and a Reason to Rule
Tuesday’s ruling sets the stage for a high-stakes showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court this fall.
In February, SCOTUS agreed to hear an appeal of Colorado Supreme Court’s refusal to dismiss Boulder’s climate lawsuit – marking the first time the Court has agreed to potentially evaluate one of these climate cases on the merits. But when granting review, the Justices also asked the parties to brief whether SCOTUS even has jurisdiction, leaving open the possibility that it could dodge the federal preemption question entirely.
The energy companies had asked the Maryland court to stay its ruling pending the outcome of Boulder’s case – an outcome that would have let Boulder argue before SCOTUS that no appellate court had ruled in the companies favor on the merits. The Maryland justices declined.
In their ruling this week, the Justices were explicit about why: they wanted to give SCOTUS “the benefit of a high court’s analysis that is different from that expressed by our colleagues on the high courts of Colorado and Hawaii.”
Maryland created a clear split among state high courts – precisely the kind of conflict that strengthens the case for Supreme Court to review on the merits. And notably, even in her partial dissent, Justice Shirley Watts agreed the question of federal law preemption is one the U.S. Supreme Court should answer.
Bottom Line: After a Decade of Defeat, today is another loss for the Rockefellers. The Maryland Supreme Court’s decisive ruling affirming the dismissal of these lawsuits is a massive setback for the climate litigation campaign, and demonstrates just how steep the climb will be for the Boulder plaintiffs at the U.S. Supreme Court this fall.
