Washington tribes’ climate lawsuit against Exxon Mobil remanded to state court

(CN) — The Makah Indian Tribe and the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe’s consolidated lawsuit against Exxon Mobil for damaging their ancestral lands will be remanded to state court, a federal judge in Washington state ruled Wednesday.

The tribes sued Exxon Mobil in December 2023, asserting claims for climate-related damages. The tribes said in their complaint that Exxon Mobil lied about the harmful effects of fossil fuel combustion and extraction, which contributed to climate change that damaged the tribes’ ancestral homeland and tribe members’ health, endangering their future. In February 2024, Exxon Mobil moved the case to federal court, arguing that state courts lacked jurisdiction.

U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead, a Joe Biden appointee, sided with the tribes on Wednesday, writing in a 22-page opinion that their claims were not preempted by federal law.

“In recent years, the Ninth Circuit has repeatedly held that federal courts lack removal jurisdiction over state-law claims brought by sovereign entities against fossil fuel companies for climate change-related harms — including in cases involving public nuisance and failure-to-warn claims against these very same defendants,” Whitehead wrote.

Exxon Mobil had argued that because the defendants are federally recognized tribes, they are limited in their right to bring state law claims because the tribes derive their right to possess land from federal law, such as treaties.

“The tribes’ claims neither assert aboriginal title under federal common law, nor present substantial and disputed federal questions whose resolution in federal court would preserve the congressionally approved balance of federal and state judicial responsibilities,” Whitehead wrote. “In other words, federal jurisdiction is absent here. To hold otherwise would elevate form over substance and improperly federalize state-law claims just because the plaintiffs are Indian tribes.”

Exxon Mobil had also argued that the tribes’ claims were preempted by the Supreme Court’s decision in Oneida Indian Nation of New York State v. County of Oneida , a 1974 case where the court held that the Oneida Indian Nation had a valid federal common law right to sue for the unlawful taking of their land. The decision established that Native American tribes could bring land claims in federal court based on past treaty violations.

Whitehead wrote that Exxon Mobil’s argument was off the mark and that even if Oneida preempted some of the claims, the tribes’ claims in this case are distinguishable.

“Even if federal common law could completely preempt state law in some cases, the Oneida cases do not establish a federal common-law cause of action that would displace the tribes’ specific state-law claims here,” Whitehead wrote, adding that Exxon Mobil’s interpretation of Oneida would make any tribal land dispute fall under federal jurisdiction even if it wasn’t appropriate.

“The court concludes that the rights the tribes seek to vindicate here — the rights to be free from unreasonably dangerous products, from public nuisances, and from the various harms these torts inflict — are creatures of Washington law, not federal law,” Whitehead wrote.

Attorneys representing the tribes did not respond to requests for comment before this story was published. Exxon Mobil’s attorneys also did not respond to requests for comment.