By Rosemary Misdary, Gothamist
Jan 16, 2025 – A Manhattan judge has dismissed New York City’s lawsuit seeking to hold oil and gas companies accountable for misleading statements about the environmental benefits of their products.
The ruling issued by Justice Anar Rathod Patel on Tuesday amounts to yet another legal defeat in a nationwide effort by local and state governments to sue large polluters. In 2019, state Attorney General Letitia James’ office lost a case alleging ExxonMobil had misled shareholders about the cost of climate change to its business. In November, James’ office lost a lawsuit that sought to hold PepsiCo liable for litter accumulating on the banks of the Buffalo River.
The new ruling came in a case initiated by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. It centered on ExxonMobil, BP and Shell’s alleged “greenwashing” of the gasoline they sell by minimizing its harm to the environment. But Patel wrote in his ruling that there was a fundamental flaw to the city’s arguments about the harm caused by the alleged misleading statements about climate change.
“The city cannot have it both ways by, on one hand, asserting that consumers are aware of and commercially sensitive to the fact that fossil fuels cause climate change, and, on the other hand, that the same consumers are being duped by defendants’ failure to disclose that their fossil fuel products emit greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change,” Patel wrote.
Over the past year, large oil companies received favorable rulings on similar claims in Delaware and Maryland. About 30 climate cases are still pending in state courts, including in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.
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