If judges in liberal states, like New York, make ruling like this it means our society isn’t dead yet.
A New York appeals court handed three of America’s biggest oil companies another legal victory Thursday, rejecting New York City’s attempt to hold them liable for allegedly misleading consumers about the environmental benefits of fossil fuels.
The New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, First Department, unanimously upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit accusing ExxonMobil, Shell and BP of deceptive advertising. The Thursday ruling marks another setback in a yearslong legal battle over whether energy companies can be held responsible for their environmental marketing claims.
“While the reasonable consumer standard appears to be better supported in current law than the more subjective standard urged by the City, we need not resolve this issue to decide this appeal,” read the appellate opinion.”Under either standard, the City’s claim that defendants engaged in product greenwashing cannot stand.”
Aording to the Daily Caller, this isn’t the first time New York City has tried this and it, likely, won’t be their last. So far, there’s no indication that the Big Apple will appeal the ruling but, in all likelihood, they will. Hopefully, the US Supreme Court will take this ruling into consideration when deliberating over Suncor Energy v. Boulder due to advertising being one of the assertions for Boulder suing fossil fuel companies.
The efforts to sue fossil fuel companies based on alleged harms caused by their products is nothing more than a legal shakedown and, hopefully, more lawsuts like New York’s will be rejected by the courts and the US Supreme Court will rule against the respondents in the Suncor Energy v. Boulder. This legal chicanery has to stop.
PHOTO CREDIT: New York State Appellate Division Courthouse – By ajay_suresh – Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=112875534
