Ah, California lawmakers are at it again, pushing the boundaries of legal absurdity with a bill that would allow victims of natural disasters to sue oil companies for damages. Yes, you read that correctly—wildfire victims could now take ExxonMobil to court as if hurricanes and forest fires suddenly started appearing the moment someone filled up their SUV.
The Legal Logic of a Cartoon Villain
The bill, introduced by two Democratic legislators, is based on the idea that oil and gas companies have been deceptively hiding the risks of climate change while, presumably, twirling their mustaches and laughing maniacally. The argument is that fossil fuel use has “intensified storms and wildfires,” costing Californians billions of dollars and even sending the state’s insurance market into turmoil.
There’s just one problem: this entire premise has already been tried—and laughed out of court. Sher Edling, the law firm spearheading climate litigation, has been slapping lawsuits on oil companies for years using this exact strategy, and guess what? It has failed over and over again. Courts have rejected these cases, recognizing that pinning every natural disaster on Big Oil is about as scientifically rigorous as blaming your morning coffee for rush hour traffic.
Sher Edling: The Lawsuit Factory
Sher Edling has been on a mission to sue oil companies into oblivion, using the same flimsy arguments that courts have repeatedly rejected. Their entire playbook is based on two thoroughly discredited document sets:
- The “reposition global warming” memos—unsolicited PR pitches that were never adopted by the industry.
- The “victory will be achieved” memos—also unused, but somehow still treated as incriminating evidence.
The proposal claims that the oil industry intentionally deceived the public about the risks of fossil fuels on climate change that now have intensified storms and wildfires and caused billions of dollars in damage in California. Such disasters have also driven the state insurance market to a crisis where companies are raising rates, limiting coverage or pulling out completely from regions susceptible to wildfires and other natural disasters, supporters of the bill said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-considers-letting-wildfire-victims-sue-oil-companies-for-damages/ar-AA1xXQzF?
Yet, despite their track record of failure, they keep finding new ways to push this nonsense. Now, instead of arguing in federal courts (where they’ve been shut down repeatedly), they’re shifting their strategy to state-level litigation, hoping that activist judges in California will give them a sympathetic ear.
Scapegoating Oil Companies While Ignoring the Real Culprits
One of the most ridiculous aspects of this proposal is that it conveniently ignores other major contributors to California’s wildfire crisis. For example:
- Arson: A significant portion of wildfires are caused by human activity, including arson. But sure, let’s blame oil companies instead.
- Forest Mismanagement: California’s refusal to conduct controlled burns and proper land management has turned its forests into literal tinderboxes. But again, let’s blame Shell for that.
- Utility Companies: The bill ironically acknowledges that utilities are already held liable when their equipment sparks fires—but instead of focusing on better grid management, legislators want to widen the blame net to oil companies.
The Ultimate Goal: Legalized Extortion
This entire effort is just another attempt to shake down energy companies for cash. If the courts won’t force oil firms to pay, maybe political pressure and activist lawsuits can do the trick. Sher Edling isn’t in this fight because they care about climate change—they’re in it because climate lawsuits are big business.
But here’s the real kicker: Even if these lawsuits succeed, who do you think will pay for it? Oil companies aren’t charities—they’ll pass these costs directly to consumers. That means you, the everyday driver, will end up paying even more at the pump because of a lawsuit based on junk science and legal gymnastics.
If approved, California would be the first state in the U.S. to allow for such lawsuits, according to the bill’s author, state Sen. Scott Wiener.
“We are all paying for these disasters, but there is one stakeholder that is not paying: the fossil fuel industry, which makes the product that is fueling the climate change,” Wiener said at a Monday news conference.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-considers-letting-wildfire-victims-sue-oil-companies-for-damages/ar-AA1xXQzF?
Conclusion: The Never-Ending Blame Game
California legislators are once again proving that they would rather chase after boogeymen than address the real causes of natural disasters. Instead of focusing on practical solutions like forest management, infrastructure improvements, or even investigating why their own policies have driven insurance companies out of the state, they’re opting for another round of performative legal theater.
But hey, why deal with reality when you can just sue Exxon instead?
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Remind me, what are the ignition points of dry wood and asphalt shingles again?
If Big Oil is guilty of anything, it’s virtue signaling and not punching back hard against this nonsense.
Seems like they’ve decided to punch back but, so what?:
https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-01-07/exxon-sues-california-attorney-general
Bonta doesn’t care. If he loses nothing happens to him personally, and the nitwits here in California will vote for him again, ‘cos they heard his name in the same sentence as suing Big Oil.
Even when the cases fail, it is a financial hit to the corporation, which of course is passed on to the consumers.
Exxon Mobil is punching back now. Remember, they filed a federal defamation lawsuit against California Attorney General Rob Bonta just a couple weeks ago on January 6, in response to the lawsuit Bonta filed last year against Exxon Mobil claiming that they deceived the public for 50 years by “promising” the plastics produced from their petroleum products would be recycled. That case will be litigated in Texas, I believe, which should be fun. You can bet Exxon Mobil is paying close attention to this bill to see if it passes, and preparing a team to file their next lawsuit in the same court. If it comes to that, I wouldn’t be surprised if they also individually sue each California legislator who voted for it, and Governor Newsom. We’ll see if it passes the legislature and is signed into law. My bet is that it won’t, especially given who’s in the White House now and the prevailing winds in the country, which, like the Santa Ana winds, are blowing fiercely from the East; all the way from the White House.
Resident taxpayers should sue L.A. and California, along with personal suits of appropriate officials. And sue the L.A. times for damages from election fraud.
And oil companies should just move out of California, and stop selling them such evidently dangerous products.
If they did that, they would still get sued for not providing a vital product to California.
It might be better if the oil companies went to court to get a court order banning them and their products. Then when the feces hits the fan, they cannot be claimed as culpable as they were only following legal mandates issued by the courts.
Maybe the shareholders (IRAs, 401k, pensions, teachers retirement accounts, insurance companies, etc, etc, etc) should sue the oil companies Boards for violating their fiduciary responsibilities by continuing to operate in California?
That would be fun to watch!
Sue green NGOs like The Center For Biological Diversity for depraved indifference in blocking brush clearing and other chaparral management techniques. They were actively indifferent to the fires they should reasonably have known would follow from the effects of their lawsuits.
Of course, those lawsuits were with the complicity of the California Democratic Party, which colluded with the NGOs to hide their own green policies. Hold the party liable as well.
Then there’s the whole comparative negligence aspect and plaintiffs own usage of FFs
It is not just the oil companies
.
California woke, leftist idiots, with insane requirements imposed on insurance companies, caused these companies to leave the state
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That meant homeowners, living in a fire-prone area, could not get insurance at any price.
.
On top of that the reservoirs usually for fire fighting were empty, or down for repair
,
There was water in reservoirs north of California, but it was not allowed to be used, because of protecting some snowy owl, or whatever.
.
When the inferno started, fire fighters ran out of water.
They also ran out of equipment, because the idiot Governor had sent it to Ukraine
If I were Trump, I would not send one penny to California, because they hate Trump, voted against Trump and voted against MAGA.
The California government should borrow money to rebuild and compensate people’s losses
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I would send a lot of money to North Carolina, because they would voted for Trump and voted for MAGA
Isn’t the major cause of the damage caused by wildfires the California lawmakers themselves? Making rules, regulations and requirements making it near impossible to do sensible fire prevention? If anyone was made liable for suing, shouldn’t it be the lawmakers themselves? Then maybe things would change. Or is that too simple a solution?
It is clear and clean, but the legal process is so fundamentally corrupt it is probably doomed to failure before it even starts.
A Definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. Applies here.
A few facts:
SoCal’s Mediterranean ecosystem has probably been prone to frequent wildfires since the first ‘Californians’ crossed over from Asia on land bridge that is now at least 130 meters below current sea level.
There you go again, confusing the issue with facts!
/s
The oil companies make Diesel fuel for the firetrucks. Why are these city slickers so ignorant?
They’re not ignorant. It’s a life of code words here among the rich capitalists. I’ll give you an example – people who send their kids to private schools so they don’t have to mix with black kids have Black Lives Matter signs on their lawns. They go to dinner events in $100,000 Porsches, sip on mega-expensive champagne and nobody asks about politics because everyone knows they’re all socialists don’t ya know. Even the venture capitalists are socialists. Seriously.
Fortunately, I’m in a position where it’s my own personal comedy show.
‘It’s a life of code words here among the rich capitalists.’
Correct. A consise and descriptive term for this in general is “luxury beliefs”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxury_belief
They also make the fuel for the fire-bombers and helicopters.
Big Oil really needs to stop playing defense all the time. React to a bizarre law suit like this by collectively withdrawing their products from market on the argument that to sell more would increase their liability should they lose the law suit. 48 hours later they will be forced by legislation to return their products to market. The politicians will look like the stunning fools they are, the law suit will be dead by an act of the State, and it will be drilled into people’s head in no uncertain terms how vulnerable their lives are without fossil fuels.
Actually funding a few prominent skeptics wouldn’t hurt either.
What, you haven’t been getting those checks?
I keep calling them and they tell me the check is in the mail. I tell them no one sends checks anymore is all e-xfer now. That’s when they hang up on me.
I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong because I’m not getting checks or e-xfers.
“The argument is that fossil fuel use has “intensified storms and wildfires,” costing Californians billions of dollars and even sending the state’s insurance market into turmoil.”
Hmm ok, let’s push that fake science aside for a moment.
The obvious flaw in the argument is that the users of fossil fuels aren’t being sued, only the stockists of the products.
Agreed, it’s like suing Molson’s because your son got drunk and wrecked the family car.
Remind me how well prohibiting alcohol worked out.
Point, game, set, match.
Our first socialist liberal Democrat, JFK, was son of a bootlegger.
Can I sue Exxon? I hit a bump in the road and spilt coffee….
Easier to blame oil companies than to actually do something.
Hydrocarbon fuels should be denied CA. that is what they want, apparently.
Then there’s the problem that “intensified storms and wildfires” don’t actually exist.
I wonder who California is going to sue when their underfunded pensions come due and the lower returns oil companies will yield from being sued trickle into those pension accounts increasing the size of the balance that California taxpayers will have to pay to cover pension payments.
This is a transfer of wealth from the have nots to the lawyers.
We hear about Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Bank. We need to add Big Lawyer to this list. Transfer of wealth from consumers to the lawyers. At least the other three have a market component they have to address.
It used to be called ambulance chasers. They have evolved.
This line of crap still has a really big problem.
First, the issue of standing. Then what is the actual ’cause of action’. Then there is the very small issue of actual proof of the direct cause of claimed damages.
Not being a lawer, I wouldn’t trust that this type of hot garbage would survive as far as summary judgement for the defense.
Your milage may vary.
No doubt if these lawsuits are successful, the recipients of compensation will switch to EVs, solar roof panels, backyard windmills, and public transit. In addition, they’ll stop using airlines, eating meat and simply adopt more basic lifestyles in general because who wants a repeat of these climate disaster, and such changes are guaranteed to prevent them.
California government sucks.