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Houston Business Journal:

A case filed against "Big Oil" by a small Alaskan fishing village over the ill-effects of global warming on its shores and livelihood was dismissed Oct. 15 by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The Native Village of Kivalina filed suit against ExxonMobil Corp. and others last February, attempting to recover $400 million in damages for public nuisance related to emitting pollutants that have allegedly caused the sea to rise and reclaim parts of Kivalina shores.

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"Rather than trivializing the suit as an ‘ordinary tort case,' the District Court found that the matter could not be resolved without considering the truly global nature of the issue - and the lack of any ascertainable standards to determine its resolution," said Houston attorney Richard Faulk, head of the environmental practice group and chair of the litigation department at Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP.

Climate Change Attorney Richard Faulk in Houston Business Journal

The ruling goes against the Second Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling on utility emissions last month in Connecticut v. AEP.

"Contrary to the sweeping and unprecedented ruling of the Second Circuit, the Kivalina court wisely recognized that global climate change allegations cannot support federal question jurisdiction," Faulk said. "Unlike the Second Circuit, the court saw major distinctions between ordinary pollution cases and planet-wide climate claims, and was not willing to indulge its creativity to invent liability criteria on a planetary scale."

The Kivalina case is likely not dead, though. The decision will likely be appealed, and the public nuisance claims could be refiled in state court.

http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2009/10/12/daily48.html

© 2009 American City Business Journals, Inc.