This month, we argued two major cases against some of the most powerful companies in the world in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
At a February 5 hearing in Pasadena, we continued our fight to hold the Big Oil companies accountable for their decades of deception about fossil fuel-driven climate change and the resulting damages the City of Oakland has suffered and will suffer in the future.
In 2017 we filed a ground-breaking public nuisance lawsuit against the five largest publicly owned fossil fuel companies in the world – Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell – “Big Oil.” Our lawsuit asks the court to hold Big Oil accountable for the costs of sea walls and other infrastructure that will be necessary to protect Oakland from the ongoing and future consequences of climate change caused by the companies’ products.
As early as the 1970s, industry scientists warned the oil companies that global production and use of fossil fuel would cause "severe" and "catastrophic" climate change. Instead of acknowledging that danger, the companies waged a massive disinformation campaign to deny the reality of climate change, undermine legitimate science and protect their astronomical profits.
California law is clear that if a company knowingly misrepresents the danger of its product, and the product causes harm, the company must pay. In this case, Oakland will have to pay billions of dollars for measures such as sea walls to protect lives and property in our city. Under California law, the oil companies should be liable for those costs.
Unfortunately, the federal district court dismissed our lawsuit last year. We appealed, asking the Court of Appeals to send the case back to state court, which is the appropriate court to decide a case about state law.
***
On February 11 in San Francisco, we presented arguments opposing Wells Fargo’s appeal of a ruling in our ongoing lawsuit to stop the bank’s predatory and racially discriminatory mortgage lending practices against African American and Latino borrowers.
Wells Fargo is the largest mortgage lender in our nation. In 2015, we sued Wells Fargo to stop the bank's predatory and racially discriminatory mortgage lending practices against African American and Hispanic applicants. These practices violate the federal Fair Housing Act and have devastated individuals, families and entire communities in Oakland and across the country, drastically reducing or wiping out their assets. We seek compensation for damages the City of Oakland has suffered as result of the bank's violations of federal law.
Evidence shows that Wells Fargo routinely issued predatory loans to African American and Hispanic borrowers while the bank offering better loans to similarly-qualified white borrowers. When Wells Fargo issued racially discriminatory loans, the bank knew that many of those loans would result in foreclosure. Yet Wells Fargo simply ignored this reality and continued to issue toxic, discriminatory loans because they generated significant revenue.
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California denied Wells Fargo’s motion to dismiss our lawsuit in 2018, ruling that the City provided sufficient evidence to show that the bank’s racially discriminatory practices may have resulted in a spike in foreclosures and massive reduction in property tax revenue. Wells Fargo appealed.
We will provide updates regarding these important cases in future newsletters.
