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Speaker 1: Could three lawsuits in California be the variations on climate

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Speaker 1: change lawsuits that turned them from unsuccessful to litigation. Like

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Speaker 1: the public nuisance suits that turned into the multibillion dollar

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Speaker 1: tobacco litigation, no case has held a company liabel for

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Speaker 1: the effects of climate change, but these cases are slightly different.

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Speaker 1: The California counties of San Mateo and Marin in the

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Speaker 1: city of Imperial Beach, have sued dozens of major oil,

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Speaker 1: natural gas, and coal companies, including Chevron and Exxon Mobile,

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Speaker 1: over rising sea levels from climate change. They claim the

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Speaker 1: companies have concealed the dangers of their carbon emissions, and

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Speaker 1: they want to hold them accountable for the billions of

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Speaker 1: dollars in damages to homes, businesses, and the disappearing coastline.

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Speaker 1: Joining me is Brandon Barnes, senior litigation analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence.

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Speaker 1: In our Bloomberg newsroom in Washington, d C. Brandon, the

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Speaker 1: suits are under the legal doctrine of public nuisance under

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Speaker 1: California common law. Tell us more about that. Well, it's

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Speaker 1: basically uh and this is something that's been tried before.

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Speaker 1: In a similar case involving Alaskan Island community Kivaalina, and

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Speaker 1: essentially it's it's an allegation that the companies here have

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Speaker 1: violated some sort of public right to uh not be

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Speaker 1: bothered by something like in this case, having the erosion

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Speaker 1: happen or the sea level rise and the concommitting amount

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Speaker 1: of money that they have to spend a deal with

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Speaker 1: that issue. Now, what will be the biggest turtle in

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Speaker 1: these lawsuits? Well, I think that and this is common

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Speaker 1: for all of these these climate change lawsuits, and we've

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Speaker 1: had a number of them since probably back dating back

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Speaker 1: as far as two thousand and five, where the allegations

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Speaker 1: range from you know, you caused Hurricane Katrina to be

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Speaker 1: far more severe than it was. You're causing emissions that

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Speaker 1: are uh going to lead to health issues, or here

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Speaker 1: there's sea level rise which is going to lead to

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Speaker 1: property destruction and diminution and value. The core issue that

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Speaker 1: aside from just standing in federal court, is going to

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Speaker 1: be causation. And causation is basically you have to prove

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Speaker 1: to the courts to a level legal certainty that these

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Speaker 1: companies individually have contributed to climate change, which then contributed

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Speaker 1: to c level rise, which then contributed at some ascertainable

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Speaker 1: level to the damage that was caused. Could these lawsuits

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Speaker 1: get by with advances in climate science and the fact

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Speaker 1: that the rising sea level is a little more easily

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Speaker 1: measured and linked to a warming planet, Well, I think

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Speaker 1: that that's helpful to the planet's case certainly. Uh, we've

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Speaker 1: never gotten to the point where the court has had

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Speaker 1: to measure where that certainty needs to be. But it's

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Speaker 1: still has to get over that hurdle which links each

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Speaker 1: one of the companies in a certain no will amount

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Speaker 1: of contribution to the climate change. So this is different

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Speaker 1: from some of the other laws. So it's like the

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Speaker 1: Alaskan Island you were mentioning because it's in state court

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Speaker 1: and so you don't have federal court and the e

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Speaker 1: p A involved. Will that help? Vic Schaer, who's who's

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Speaker 1: the lead planiffs attorney on this case, is no stranger

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Speaker 1: to trying different things to to get at these torque cases,

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Speaker 1: which is h He's been around a long time doing

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Speaker 1: this and this is another effort to try and tweak

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Speaker 1: the strategy because they're not dealing with the same standing

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Speaker 1: rules that you have in federal courts, which is Article

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Speaker 1: three standing and that's what was fatal in part to

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Speaker 1: the Kivolina case and has been really tough to get

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Speaker 1: over when you're trying to do this on a federal level,

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Speaker 1: because they're they're dealing with the fact that these are

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Speaker 1: political questions or the courts would rather deal with this

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Speaker 1: on Let the court, let Congress deal with it as

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Speaker 1: the more appropriate branch the government. So in that sense,

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Speaker 1: moving to the state, where it's a different standing analysis,

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Speaker 1: it is definitely a beneficial move, and it's a smart move.

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Speaker 1: So Brandon the tobacco litigation went through so many variations

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Speaker 1: before it became what it was. Is our climate change

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Speaker 1: lawsuits possibly going to be like that, going through vary

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Speaker 1: aation after variation until they find a formula. I would

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Speaker 1: bet on it, yes, because there's such a possibility of

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Speaker 1: a home run for the attorneys here, which you know,

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Speaker 1: not that they're driving this for money or anything, but

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Speaker 1: they certainly have a vested interest in getting big judgments

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Speaker 1: and they need to do that using tort law because

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Speaker 1: that's that's their best way to leverage um the facts here,

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Speaker 1: and that's gonna potentially go into their largest largest win.

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Speaker 1: But to do that, they're really gonna need to try

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Speaker 1: a number of different ways to get at this and

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Speaker 1: this is just another iteration. In investigations by the Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles Times and Inside Climate News reported that exce On

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Speaker 1: Mobile was aware of climate science for decades but continue

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Speaker 1: to fund public misinformation campaigns, which of course ex On

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Speaker 1: denies and Excellent Mobile is fighting the AGS in New

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Speaker 1: York and Massachusetts. Uh connected to this? Explain what's happening

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Speaker 1: in those states? Well, that's a great question, Jim, because, um,

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Speaker 1: what's happening there with New York and Massachusetts AGS and

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Speaker 1: as a result of some of these investigations is there's

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Speaker 1: an allegation that the companies like Exxon have defrauded the public.

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Speaker 1: And in the New York and Massachusetts cases, what the

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Speaker 1: hook is there? So they've they've not told investors of

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Speaker 1: the risks, and therefore we'll have to change their reporting

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Speaker 1: their SEC filings, and so it's really become a financial

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Speaker 1: disclosure case and that sort of the similar issue that's

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Speaker 1: been identified in this case here is it's a disclosure

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Speaker 1: issue and that brings in fraud and other claims of

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Speaker 1: action that legally, uh, you know, might get you a

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Speaker 1: little past that first motion to dismiss stage, might get

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Speaker 1: you into being able to do discovery, which is a

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Speaker 1: is a tough place for these companies to go. Let's

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that, because in your

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Speaker 1: litigation watched on this you talk about how even if

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Speaker 1: they don't get through to the end of the suit,

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Speaker 1: they will get through discovery, which could reveal what. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's let's circle all the way back to the tobacco cases.

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Speaker 1: This is the various iterations of these cases they go through.

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Speaker 1: Once one of them gets past that initial hurdle of

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Speaker 1: the motion dismiss stage, which is that first motion, they'll

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Speaker 1: be able to get into the information discovery stage, which

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Speaker 1: is where you can get sworn testimony, you can get

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Speaker 1: internal documents, and you can get answers to questions under oath,

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Speaker 1: and so that will provide them potentially with the next

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Speaker 1: basis for their lawsuit and maybe the next factual underpinning

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Speaker 1: for whatever the next claim. Maybe. So if this one fails,

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Speaker 1: maybe that's just the next step. In about thirty seconds, Brandon,

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Speaker 1: what's the likelihood of settlement Suddenly, Here's pretty unlikely, I think,

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Speaker 1: given the claims are so big and against so many

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Speaker 1: different parties. You may see piecemeal settlement here there. But

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Speaker 1: the danger for the companies. Is that they're establishing their

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Speaker 1: own precedent with these attorneys, is that they're willing to

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Speaker 1: settle these claims when they're brought like this. All right,

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Speaker 1: we'll check back with you when there's a new development

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Speaker 1: in this. That's Brandon Barnes, senior litigation analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence.

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Speaker 1: And to read more about Brandon's analysis, you can go

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Speaker 1: to b I go on the Bloomberg terminal