7th Circuit rules fossil fuel companies cannot move Chicago's climate lawsuit to federal court because…

Record source: CourtListener

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 25-1916 CITY OF CHICAGO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. BP P.L.C., et al., Defendants-Appellants. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:24-cv-02496 — Franklin U. Valderrama, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED JANUARY 28, 2026 — DECIDED JULY 15, 2026 ____________________ Before HAMILTON, MALDONADO, and TAIBLESON, Circuit Judges. TAIBLESON, Circuit Judge. The City of Chicago has sued ma- jor fossil fuel companies from all over the world, seeking to recover certain damages stemming from global warming. The defendants removed this action from Illinois state court to federal court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1), the federal of- ficer removal statute. The district court remanded, and we af- firm. 2 No. 25-1916 Suits like this one have proliferated all over the country, and many raise difficult and novel legal questions. See, e.g., Suncor Energy (U.S.A.) Inc. v. Cnty. Comm’rs, 146 S. Ct. 1605 (2026) (mem.) (granting certiorari). But this one does not. Chi- cago has defined its claims narrowly: It alleges that the de- fendants misrepresented the effects of fossil fuel emissions on global warming, and it seeks compensation only for harm re- sulting from the increase in fossil fuel consumption attributa- ble to those misrepresentations. The defendants, for their part, invoke federal jurisdiction only on the grounds that this suit relates to their fuel production for the federal government. We conclude that the defendants’ federal work is too attenuated from Chicago’s claims to support removal at this time. I. Background In March of 2024, the City of Chicago sued fourteen energy companies and a related trade association in Illinois state court. These companies (the defendants here) extract fossil fuels, refine them, and sell them to end users, including the federal government. The City’s complaint asserted eleven counts, all arising under state or local law—including products liability for fail- ure to warn, negligence, public and private nuisance, unjust enrichment, consumer fraud for deceptive practices, and mis- representation. In substance, Chicago claims the defendants long understood the climatic effects of burning fossil fuels, but they intentionally concealed and misrepresented those ef- fects and obscured their own roles in causing climate change. As a result of the defendants’ alleged misinformation cam- paign, Chicago claims it suffered a variety of harms, including “heat-related deaths and illness, worse air quality, … in- creased reliance on costly electricity[,] … sewage overflows, No. 25-1916 3 contamination of local waterways, … transit disruptions[,] … shoreline erosion, property damage, and the potential for toxic algae blooms.” Chicago therefore seeks monetary dam- ages from the defendants, but only to the extent that their mis- conduct “led to consumers using more fossil fuels, and using fossil fuels less efficiently, than they otherwise would have.” The defendants removed the suit to the Northern District of Illinois pursuant to the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1). That statute authorizes a federal officer or “person acting under that officer” to remove suits in state courts “for or relating to any act under color of such office.” Id. To support removal, the defendants pointed to their work over the past century to produce fossil fuels for, or in conjunc- tion with, the federal government. During and after World War II, for instance, some of the defendants’ predecessors provided large amounts of fossil fuels to the military under the direction of federal agencies, including the Petroleum Ad- ministration for War. That production included specialized fuel—for example, some defendants produced high-octane aviation gasoline through the end of the Korean War. The de- fendants’ fossil fuel production for the military continued through the Cold War, including specialized jet fuel for the U- 2 spy plane and the government’s OXCART and SR-71 Black- bird programs. And the U.S. military maintains contracts with some of the defendants for similar fuels through the present day. The defendants emphasized that they also produced oil on behalf of, at the direction of, or by permission of the federal government outside the war context. Between 1944 and 1975, Standard Oil (a predecessor of some defendants) operated the Elk Hills Reserve oil field in California on behalf of and along- 4 No. 25-1916 side the Navy. Some of the defendants have also supplied and managed the federal government’s Strategic Petroleum Re- serve since the 1970s. And various defendants have received federal leases to retrieve oil from the Outer Continental Shelf and federal lands onshore. The defendants argued that Chicago’s suit relates to their federal work because the claimed damages result from the emission of greenhouse gases, which are impossible to parti- tion between governmental and non-governmental sources. The district court disagreed and remanded to state court. II. Discussion We have jurisdiction to review the district court’s remand order under 28 U.S.C. § 1447(d), and we do so de novo. See Bet- zner v. Boeing Co., 910 F.3d 1010, 1013–14, 1013 n.1 (7th Cir. 2018). The federal officer removal statute provides a federal judi- cial forum to the United States government, its officers, and those acting under them for suits related to their federal acts. Specifically, “[t]he United States or any agency thereof or any officer (or any person acting under that officer) of the United States or of any agency thereof” may remove any civil or crim- inal action “for or relating to any act under color of such of- fice.” 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1). The statute’s “‘basic’ purpose” is to protect the federal government from state-court “interfer- ence with its ‘operations.’” Watson v. Philip Morris Cos., 551 U.S. 142, 150 (2007) (quoting Willingham v. Morgan, 395 U.S. 402, 406 (1969)). To establish federal jurisdiction under § 1442(a)(1), the re- moving party must show that (1) it is “the United States, a federal agency, a federal officer, or a person ‘acting under’ a No. 25-1916 5 federal officer”; (2) the suit is “for or relating to any act under color of such office”; and (3) it has “a colorable federal de- fense” to the suit. Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Par., 608 U.S. ___, ___, 146 S. Ct. 1052, 1057–58 (2026) (citations omit- ted). 1 A. The second requirement—that the suit is “for or relating to any act” performed under color of federal office—is dispos- itive in this case, so we consider it alone. As the Supreme Court has very recently explained, § 1442(a)(1)’s “relating to” language requires a “connection” between the conduct at issue in the suit and the federal duty. Id. at 1060; see also Baker v. Atl. Richfield Co., 962 F.3d 937, 943 (7th Cir. 2020). The connection need not be “strictly caus[al],” Plaquemines, 146 S. Ct. at 1060, and the removing party there- fore need not allege “that the complained-of conduct itself was at the behest of a federal agency,” Baker, 962 F.3d at 944 (quot- ing In re Commonwealth’s Motion to Appoint Couns. Against or Directed to Def. Ass’n of Phila., 790 F.3d 457, 470 (3d Cir. 2015)). But the relationship must be more than “tenuous,

Official opinion source