The plaintiffs in Juliana v. United States–aka the “kids climate case”–are back at the Supreme Court asking the justices to bring their case back from the dead.
The lawsuit (which I have covered repeatedly) claims there is a federal constitutional right to a stable environment enforceable in federal court. While one district court judge accepted these arguments, the Ninth Circuit has repeatedly concluded the plaintiffs lack standing to press their audacious claims.
Back in May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted the federal governments writ of mandamus to end the district court’s proceedings and ordered the case dismissed. Since then, the plaintiffs sought a writ of mandamus from the justices to vacate the Ninth Circuit’s judgment and bring the case back, but the justices were not having any of it.
Now the plaintiffs have filed a petition for certiorari, challenging the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion that they lack standing and approach to mandamus. Cleverly, the plaintiffs have sought to tie their standing argument to issues being considered in another case on the docket later this term (Gutierrez v. Saenz). But it is unlikely to be enough.
This cert petition is unlikely to attract much interest from the Court. The real question is whether it will influence how the justices evaluate other pending petitions for certiorari, such as those seeking high court review of state tort law claims against fossil fuel companies. Insofar as the Juliana petition (combined with the Montana Supreme Court’s recent Held decision) raise the salience of climate litigation, they could feed the impression that climate litigation is out of control and needs a corrective. In this sense, the filing could make it more likely that the Court grants certiorari in the Honolulu case and issues a ruling cutting back climate litigation across the board. In the alternative, the justices may recognize it as a fringe filing and deny it without a second thought.
