Wrongful death lawsuit says Big Oil contributed to heat wave and woman's death

Key Points

• Misti Leon is suing seven major oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, alleging their products fueled the record 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave that led to her mother’s fatal hyperthermia.
• The lawsuit contends these companies knew by 1968 that burning fossil fuels would worsen climate disasters but chose to hide, downplay and misrepresent those risks.
• Peer-reviewed analysis found the 2021 “heat dome” was virtually impossible without human-caused climate change driven by greenhouse gas emissions.
• This case is among the first wrongful-death claims seeking to hold Big Oil directly liable for an individual’s death attributed to climate change.

In one of the nation’s first wrongful-death claims seeking to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its role in the changing climate, a Washington state woman is suing seven oil and gas companies, saying they contributed to an extraordinarily hot day that led to her mother's fatal hyperthermia.

The lawsuit filed in state court this week says the companies knew that their products have altered the climate, including contributing to a 2021 heat wave in the Pacific Northwest that killed 65-year-old Juliana Leon, and that they failed to warn the public of such risks.

On June 28, 2021, an unusual heat wave culminated in a 108-degrees Fahrenheit (42.22 degrees Celsius) day — the hottest ever recorded in the state, according to the filing. Leon had just driven 100 miles from home for an appointment, and she rolled down her windows on the way back because her car's air conditioning wasn't working.

Leon pulled over and parked her car in a residential area, according to the lawsuit. She was found unconscious behind the wheel when a bystander called for help. Despite medical interventions, Leon died.

The filing names Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66 and BP subsidiary Olympic Pipeline Company.

“Defendants knew that their fossil fuel products were already altering the earth’s atmosphere,” when Juliana was born, Thursday’s filing said. “By 1968, Defendants understood that the fossil fuel-dependent economy they were creating and perpetuating would intensify those atmospheric changes, resulting in more frequent and destructive weather disasters and foreseeable loss of human life.”

The filing adds: “The extreme heat that killed Julie was directly linked to fossil fuel-driven alteration of the climate.”

Chevron Corporation counsel Theodore Boutrous Jr. said in a statement: “Exploiting a personal tragedy to promote politicized climate tort litigation is contrary to law, science, and common sense. The court should add this far-fetched claim to the growing list of meritless climate lawsuits that state and federal courts have already dismissed.”

ConocoPhillips, BP, Shell and BP subsidiary Olympic Pipeline Company declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press. The other companies did not respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit accuses the companies of hiding, downplaying and misrepresenting the risks of climate change caused by humans burning oil and gas and obstructing research.

International climate researchers said in a peer-reviewed analysis that the 2021 “heat dome” was “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.”

Scientists have broadly attributed the record-breaking, more frequent, longer-lasting and increasingly deadly heat waves around the world to climate change that they say is a result of burning fossil fuels. Oil and gas are fossil fuels that, when burned, emit planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide.

“We’ve seen a really advanced scientific understanding about the specific effects that climate change can cause in individual extreme weather events,” said Korey Silverman-Roati, a senior fellow at the Columbia Law School's Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “Scientists today are a lot more confident in saying that but for climate change, this would not have happened."

Silverman-Roati said the specificity of the case could clarify for people the consequences of climate change and the potential consequences of company behavior.

The lawsuit was first reported by The New York Times.

“Big Oil companies have known for decades that their products would cause catastrophic climate disasters that would become more deadly and destructive if they didn’t change their business model,” said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement on the case. “But instead of warning the public and taking steps to save lives, Big Oil lied and deliberately accelerated the problem.”

Unprecedented action

States and cities have long gone after fossil fuel industry stakeholders for contributing to the planet’s warming. Recently, Hawaii and Michigan announced plans for legal action against fossil fuel companies for harms caused by climate change, though the states have been met by counter lawsuits from the U.S. Justice Department.

The Trump administration has been quick to disregard climate change and has moved against initiatives aimed at combating it. The U.S. withdrew from the Paris climate agreement. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — an agency whose weather forecasting and research workforce has been gutted — will no longer track the cost of weather disasters fueled by climate change. And the Environmental Protection Agency has been called on to a rewrite its long-standing findings that determined planet-warming greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.

Meanwhile, the federal government has ramped up support for oil and gas production in the name of an “American energy dominance” agenda, and it rolled back a host of other efforts and projects to address climate change.

Around the world, other climate cases are being watched closely as potentially setting unique precedent in the effort to hold major polluters accountable. A German court ruled this week against a Peruvian farmer who claimed an energy company's greenhouse gas emissions fueled global warming and put his home at risk.

Still, a case that looks to argue these companies should be held liable for an individual’s death is rare. Misti Leon is seeking unspecified monetary damages.

“Looking ahead, it’s hard to imagine this will be an isolated incident,” said Don Braman, associate professor at George Washington University Law School. "We’re facing an escalating climate crisis. It’s a sobering thought that this year, the hottest on record, will almost certainly be one of the coolest we’ll experience for the foreseeable future.

“It is predictable or — to use a legal term, foreseeable — that the loss of life from these climate-fueled disasters will likely accelerate as climate chaos intensifies,” he added. “At the heart of all this is the argument about the culpability of fossil fuel companies, and it rests on a large and growing body of evidence that these companies have understood the dangers of their products for decades.”

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Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

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Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.