https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/16/another-dud-in-the-string-of-bombshells/
Among the many important initiatives of this website has been holding the competition for the Award for “Stupidest Litigation in the Country.” Nominees for the coveted Award have included the group of lawsuits brought by various cities and counties against major oil companies, seeking to hold those companies liable for prospective physical damage from things like sea level rise, alleged to result from fossil fuel emissions; and the lawsuit brought by New York’s Attorney General against Exxon claiming that Exxon defrauded its own investors by downplaying the risks of climate change to its business. Yet to many readers, the very first nominee for the Stupidest Litigation Award has always been the clear leading contender to win it. That nomination, made in December 2017, went to the litigation titled Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana v. United States. This is the case where a group of adolescents in the Pacific Northwest have sought an injunction to require the federal government to decree an end to all use of fossil fuels, in order to “save the planet.” Really, it’s hard to top that one for Stupid.
But just because a particular litigation is the leading contender for the Stupidest Litigation Award does not mean that no judge will grant victory to the plaintiffs. After all, the whole idea behind each of these Stupid Litigations is to offer some judge a thinly-veiled rationale to become a hero in the progressive movement by taking self-government away from the people and turning control over to the bureaucrats and experts. Which is why it is significant that yesterday, a three-judge panel of the federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Juliana case dismissed. Moreover, the nature of the dismissal is such that the case as a practical matter is unlikely to come back. The only remaining recourses for the plaintiffs are to the full Ninth Circuit (known as an en banc rehearing), and/or to the U.S. Supreme Court. Neither is likely to change this result.