Judges' Oil Company Ties Stall Katrina Climate Litigation. Are BP Lawsuits Next?

Looking for a preview of future BP law suits? Then look no further than the Federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has just dismissed an important test case for global warming litigation.

After Hurricane Katrina, a group of New Orleans residents sued a couple dozen oil and gas companies for business practices that exacerbated climate change and made the disaster worse.

Back in October, a three-judge appeals court panel made a key decision that allowed the case to proceed, saying the plaintiffs indeed had "standing to assert their public and private nuisance, tresspass, and negligence claims, and that none of these claims present nonjusticiable political questions."

But Comer v. Murphy Oil now has hit an unexpected snag. Half of the judges on the court's full bench have begged off the case, their connections to the oil and gas defendants proving to be a conflict of interest. This presented a problem because more than half of the judges must be in attendance to make a ruling.

Without a quorum, five of the remaining judges said last week that they would reinstate the earlier lower court ruling that had initially blocked the suit. That lower district court held that the question at hand -- whether Katrina survivors could hold individual polluters responsible for global warming-related damages - was one for politicians to decide, not judges.

This naturally ruffled feathers with the three appellate judges who approved the case in October. Judge James Dennis, for one, said the court's "shockingly unwarranted actions" effectively undermined the plaintiffs' right to an appeal.

While lawsuits targeting BP continue to heat up, it's clear that the Fifth Circuit's actions could reverberate to future class action lawsuits against the British oil giant, due to the high number of judges with connections to or investments in the oil industry. This week, for example, it was reported that six of the twelve judges in the New Orleans based federal judicial district have recused themselves from BP oil spill litigation due to conflicting interests.

Even so, many environmental lawyers expect that lawsuits holding greenhouse gas-spewing companies accountable for the effects of climate change won't go away.

Matt Pawa, a lawyer representing Kivalina, an Inupiat Native American community in Alaska, against 19 oil and utility companies says that such climate suits could mirror the drawn-out tobacco and asbestos litigation of past decades. "Climate change-related litigation could become a significant issue within the next couple of years," he told Mother Jones. "Just by bringing these cases over and over again, the judiciary [and] the public get used to the idea of liability."

Comer v. Murphy Oil marks the newest battle in this war to demand legal accountability for the effects of climate change from the world's major polluters. The next step for plaintiffs is to appeal the case to the Supreme Court. Typically, moderate-to-conservative courts, such as the current roster, decline to take cases with massive political implications until either Congress weighs in or public opinion solidifies one way or the other.

As we watch in horror as millions of barrels of oil spew from BP's offshore well, public opinion continues to move toward the idea that big companies should foot the bill for the consequences of their actions. Time to see if the courts will follow our lead.

Photo credit: anolobb