As climate lawsuits falter around the country, left-wing litigators are exploring a risible new legal strategy—trying energy companies and their executives for homicide and wrongful death, a climate change Nuremburg.
Left-wing climate groups are mobilizing around a precedent-setting wrongful death lawsuit in Washington State, which contends that energy companies are directly responsible for the tragic death of a 65-year-old woman during a heat wave. And just last month, a left-wing climate litigator told senators that there is a sufficient legal basis for putting energy executives on trial for killing millions of people.
The wrongful death lawsuit, Leon v. Exxon Mobil, was filed in late May. Like many climate lawfare cases, it poses as an innocuous case, a local controversy invoking familiar legal theories to obtain a just judgment.
This case is not innocuous. It seeks a first-of-its-kind verdict holding seven energy companies responsible for a tragic fatality and has all the hallmarks of a coordinated lawfare attack.
The complaint filing was accompanied by a major press offensive, with favorable coverage in outlets like The New York Times and The Associated Press. And key climate lawfare groups such as the Center for Climate Integrity hailed the case as “another step toward accountability.”
The complaint contends that the late Juliana Leon died in June 2021 of hyperthermia—overheating—because of a heat wave energy companies generated. The fundamental problem with this lawsuit is that energy companies don’t control the weather.
Only pseudoscience could connect a particular weather event to particular energy production activities (though climate plaintiffs are forging questionable ties with researchers to hack that problem).
Essential facts undermine the story the climate lobby tells about this sad case. For example, the 65-year-old Leon was in a compromised condition, having undergone weight loss surgery just two weeks before her death.
On the day she died, she drove at least 100 miles in a car that had no functioning air conditioner as temperatures soared to over 100 degrees. When she began to be overcome by the heat, Leon did not stop and seek shelter at an air-conditioned business. According to New Republic, “Julie pulled off the highway and parked on a nearby residential street.” Gliding past those intervening acts is as shady and dishonest as exploiting a family’s grief for an ideological crusade.
This lawsuit is not a one-off. Left-wing legal strategists are laying the groundwork to put energy executives on trial for crimes against humanity (more or less).
Liberal lawyers crafted a road map for hauling energy executives into tribunals for mass murder in 2023. Their road map, “Climate Homicide: Prosecuting Big Oil For Climate Deaths,” accuses energy executives of the greatest crime in human history, an “ongoing mass homicide: conduct undertaken with a culpable mental state that substantially contributes to or accelerates death.”
It is easy to dismiss academic articles like “Climate Homicide” as the idle fantasies of self-aggrandizing windbags. But a recent U.S. Senate hearing revealed just how much currency these radical ideas have.
“Climate Homicide” co-author David Arkush testified to a Senate subcommittee just last month about U.S. energy policy and China. Arkush speculated that key company officers could be sent to prison using familiar homicide doctrines ranging from misdemeanor manslaughter to felony murder.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., even defended Arkush against Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who fairly characterized “Climate Homicide” as “moonbeam wacky.”
The Leon case in Washington State is consistent with the overall approach “Climate Homicide” outlines. Both the lawsuit and the article hold energy executives are liable for particular deaths because they know their products cause environmental harm.
But if anything, the Leon lawsuit is too modest. Wrongful death is a civil law products liability claim. If the plaintiffs prevail, the defendants will pay a settlement, and perhaps a very large one.
But “Climate Homicide” outlines a systemic problem of historic proportions that imperils the future of man. It all but demands a climate change Nuremburg.
Leon is a predicate, a case meant to acclimate the legal system to the idea that the energy companies which support our prosperity, and our quality of life, are criminals. Climate craziness is distorting the mental health of our children and the integrity of our legal system.
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