Puerto Rico Dismissal Deals Climate Lawfare Campaign Another Setback

Oil company defendants in a lawsuit claiming damages related to climate change celebrated another victory on September 11 after a U.S. district court judge in Puerto Rico dismissed a case brought by thirty-seven municipalities. The case, part of an ongoing lawfare effort in which local governments have been recruited to serve as plaintiffs, sought to hold the companies liable for damages the island suffered as a result of Hurricane Maria, which struck Puerto Rico in 2017.

Federal District Judge Silvia Carreño-Coll dismissed the case based largely on the fact that it wasn’t brought until 2022, after the four-year statute of limitations had expired. Judge Carreño-Coll further ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to establish that all the ten named defendants, along with various unnamed companies and individuals even had sufficient connections to Puerto Rico to justify the filing of the lawsuit to begin with.

[Note: This piece is also published at Forbes]

“The only contact with Puerto Rico alleged in the amended complaint is membership in trade associations,” the judge writes on Page 42 of her lengthy decision, “something that was ‘performed in the US with US groups and targeted US legislation and the US public, including the Municipalities and their citizens in Puerto Rico.’”