On January 17, long-running climate change lawsuit Juliana v. U.S. was dismissed by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The lawsuit was filed in 2015 by Our Children’s Trust, a Eugene-based nonprofit law firm, on behalf of 21 youths whose lives had been directly affected by climate change. OCT argues that “through the government’s affirmative actions that cause climate change, it has violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources.”
The case met significant opposition from the fossil fuel industry and the Trump administration, which prevented it from reaching its original destination of the U.S. District Court of Oregon in Eugene. A hearing with the Ninth Circuit Court was finally granted in 2019, and took place last June.
Last Friday, the judges voted 2-1 to dismiss the suit. The majority acknowledged in their opinions that the climate is indeed changing, and that the Juliana 21 suffered concrete injury as a result. However, Judges Mary H. Murguia and Andrew D. Hurwitz ruled that their claims were not redressable by a federal court.
In a press release, OCT Executive Director and Chief Legal Counsel Julia Olson stated “The Juliana case is far from over. The Youth Plaintiffs will be asking the full court of the Ninth Circuit to review this decision and its catastrophic implications for our constitutional democracy.
“The Court recognized that climate change is exponentially increasing and that the federal government has long known that its actions substantially contribute to the climate crisis. Yet two of the judges on the Panel refused to set the standard for redressing the constitutional violation, to protect our Nation’s children. The standard is a question of science that should be determined at trial. The majority opinion ignores the fact that we have yet to go to trial on the issue of redressability.”
By Brandon Urey
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