SEATTLE — A King County judge has ordered a February 2028 trial date for a lawsuit brought by two Washington indigenous tribes suing oil companies like Exxon, Chevron, and BP, alleging a decades-long campaign to downplay the impact of fossil-fuel emissions.
King County Superior Court Judge, James Rogers, ruled in favor of the February 2028 trial date proposed by plaintiffs, the Makah Indian Tribe and Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe, after defendants including ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Shell, and Conoco-Phillips argued for a trial date starting in October 2029, seeking more latitude in the discovery phase of evidence.
The civil lawsuits were initially filed in 2023 and at one point were shifted to Federal court in Seattle before being sent back to King County Superior Court pertaining to a state law, Washington’s Products Liability Act, for alleged failure to warn, misrepresentation, and concealment. The Tribes seek compensatory damages as relief and making the companies pay into an abatement fund to “remediate and adapt [Tribal] Reservation lands, natural resources, and infrastructure.”
The 2023 lawsuit complaint says, “Defendants mounted a disinformation campaign beginning as early as the 1970s to discredit the burgeoning scientific consensus on climate change; deny their own knowledge of climate change-related threats; create doubt about the reality and consequences of the impacts of burning fossil fuels; and delay the necessary transition to a lower-carbon future.”
A similar lawsuit involving the City and County of Honolulu v. Sunoco is waiting to go to trial in Hawaii and both the Honolulu case and Makah-Shoalwater cases could be impacted by a pending U.S. Supreme Court case, Suncor Energy, Inc v. County Commissioners of Boulder County in Colorado, which just had oral arguments at The High Court on October 5. For more information on the Suncor Energy case, you can click here.