Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit decided Hoboken v. Chevron, rejecting the oil company defendants' efforts to remove state-law-based climate change claims to federal court. The opinion by Judge Stephanos Bibas is short and to the point, and makes quick work of the oil company efforts to derail climate change-based tort claims filed in state court.
Judge Bibas' opinion begins:
Our federal system trusts state courts to hear most cases—even big, important ones that raise federal defenses. Plaintiffs choose which claims to file, in which court, and under which law. Defendants may prefer federal court, but they may not remove their cases to federal court unless federal laws let them. Here, they do not.
Oil companies ask us to hear two sweeping climate-change suits. But the plaintiffs filed those suits in state court based only on state tort law. And there is no federal hook that lets defendants remove them to federal court. So we will affirm the District Courts' orders sending them back.
