U.S. District Judge William Young issued an opinion today on his March decision to remand Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey’s lawsuit against ExxonMobil to state court. While some environmental activists touted today’s issuance of Young’s opinion as “another loss in court for Big Oil” (despite the ruling actually taking place several months ago), this narrow jurisdictional decision has no bearing on the merits of the case.

In fact, judging by how the last state court case against the company went – the New York attorney general’s embarrassing defeat last fall – activists and the Massachusetts attorney general’s office shouldn’t get too excited. In that case, New York State Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager ruled that ExxonMobil did not mislead investors over climate change impacts. Justice Ostrager concluded:

“In sum, the Office of the Attorney General failed to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that ExxonMobil made any material misstatements or omissions about its practices and procedures that misled any reasonable investor.” (emphasis added)

Seeing as New York has one of the most powerful securities laws in the country at its disposal – something Massachusetts does not – yet still failed to show the company misled investors, Judge Young’s decision seems to have doomed the Massachusetts case to the same fate as New York.

This is especially true considering the Massachusetts attorney general’s office relied on the same documents in bringing its case against ExxonMobil.

Just days after the New York trial got started last October, Attorney General Healey filed her own complaint against the company despite the office having never “interviewed a single ExxonMobil employee or gathered one piece of evidence from the company.” Instead, the Massachusetts attorney general’s office relied on a Common Interest Agreement with former-New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to gain access to documents from the New York case.

Not only is the Massachusetts attorney general’s office pulling from the same evidence as New York, it’s making some of the same failed claims that were tried in the New York case – nearly verbatim. For example, to support the allegation of securities fraud, both the Massachusetts complaint and New York complaint cite the company’s use of “proxy costs,” using suspiciously similar language:

Further hindering the Massachusetts attorney general’s chances is that fact that its case is also much more expansive than New York. In addition to accusing the company of misleading investors, it also claims the company misled consumers through its marketing and advertising. This is the same Massachusetts attorney general’s office that admitted it believes ExxonMobil should have included warnings on its advertising about climate change, even at the gas pump.

Massachusetts is bringing the same failed claims as New York, based on the same documents, but on shakier legal ground, while at the same time ratcheting up the allegations against the company, which makes Young’s decision to remand to state court look less like a “win” and more like a bad omen for the Massachusetts attorney general.