Monday, November 5, 2018
Children's Climate Change Lawsuit Proceeds: For Now, Per SCOTUS
Children and teens in Oregon filed suit in federal court in Oregon asking the court to develop a national plan to eliminate the use of fossil fuels. The government, who had sought relief in asking the court to stop the case from going to trial. SCOTUS refused to block the suit from proceeding but in the meantime informed the government that they may receive relief from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
The lawsuit, Juliana v. US, framed in human rights terminology, survived a Motion to Dismiss. In its ruling, the Court said “The debate about climate change and its impact has been before various political bodies for some time now. Plaintiffs give this debate justiciability by asserting harms that befall or will befall them personally and to a greater extent than older segments of society. It may be that eventually the alleged harms, assuming the correctness of plaintiffs' analysis of the impacts of global climate change, will befall all of us. But the intractability of the debates before Congress and state legislatures and the alleged valuing of short-term economic interest despite the cost to human life, necessitates a need for the courts to evaluate the constitutional parameters of the action or inaction taken by the government. This is especially true when such harms have an alleged disparate impact on a discrete class of society.”
According to Plaintiff's counsel, there is little discovery left to do and the case is ready to proceed with trial. The Plaintiffs will proceed on the Public Trust Doctrine. The Doctrine asserts that the government is a trustee of the natural resources that its residents depend on for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/human_rights/2018/11/childrens-climate-change-lawsuit-proceeds-for-now-per-scotus.html