The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Tuesday that state courts should be the forum for hearing public nuisance lawsuits against petroleum producers. These lawsuits allege that the producers were promoting petroleum even though they knew that it was causing environmental harms such as drought, rising sea-levels and wildfires.
The case comes from a public-nuisance complaint filed by the city of Oakland and the city and county of San Francisco against five energy companies that use fossil fuels, including BP, Chevron Corporation, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corporation and Royal Dutch Shell.
