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Opening the book on the October Term 2026
The first Monday in October brings the new Supreme Court term and, with it, the first day of oral arguments. The opening case is Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County , on whether state-tort claims against energy companies brought by the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, are preempted by federal law. It’s a big case, with potentially significant implications. Before argument begins, Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s wife, Ashley Kavanaugh, and his parents, Everett and Martha Kavanaugh, arrive to take seats in the justices’ guest box. Also here are three Boulder County commissioners – Ashely Stolzmann, Marta Loachamin, and Claire Levy, as well as Boulder City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde. They will make brief remarks to the press on the court’s plaza after the arguments. Here as well are Suncor General Counsel Mike Korenblat and ExxonMobil General Counsel Jeffrey Taylor. They will not go to the plaza. At 10 a.m., the justices take the bench, except for Justice Samuel Alito, of course. He announced last week that he would no longer participate in Suncor . Some advocacy groups had called for his recusal based on his ownership of individual energy stocks, though not of Suncor or ExxonMobil. Alito told Bloomberg’s Greg Stohr last week, an interview tied to Tuesday’s release of his book “ So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country ,” that he felt it was “prudent” to withdraw even though the court’s legal office had advised him recusal was not required. One question debated among a certain especially law-nerdy set of observers, possibly just a couple of us here at SCOTUSblog, was whether the court would switch the order of today’s cases because of the late recusal. The court’s preferred custom is that when a justice is recused and there is more than one case being argued in a day, the case with the recusal will go second so the non-participating justice can slip out relatively quietly in the short break between cases. But Suncor was seemingly scheduled as a high-profile term opener (and touted as such in many a term preview session). The court evidently decided not to disrupt the narrative. The chief justice opens with some traditional business: “I have the honor to announce, on behalf of the court, that the October 2025 Term of the Supreme Court of the United States is now closed, and the October 2026 Term is now convened.” During bar admissions, one movant departs from the short, scripted motion to tout his “fellow Marine” who will “make a great ambassador for the court.” The chief justice does not seem amused by the ad lib. Among the groups being admitted today are several graduates of the University of the District of Columbia’s David A. Clarke School of Law, where Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson last month received a raucous welcome for her speech and conversation about the emergency docket, and a group from the U.S. House office of legislative counsel, whose members’ ears will perk up during the Suncor arguments and its many mentions of the potential role of Congress in regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Roberts then calls the Suncor case for “argument first this term.” Amy Howe has this site’s main account of the argument. To me, it was clear from early on that the question presented that the court added to the case, about whether it has jurisdiction over a Colorado Supreme Court decision that arguably isn’t final, was more than just a formality. Justice Clarence Thomas asks Kannon Shanmugam, the lawyer representing Suncor and ExxonMobil, the defendants in Boulder city and county’s lawsuit, to “spend some time and explain why we have jurisdiction.” Shanmugam was then forced to spend almost all of his allotted 20 minutes of traditional time on the jurisdiction question. When Justice Elena Kagan suggests that he was switching back and forth between two theories of jurisdiction that were perhaps in tension with each other and so he should maybe choose one, Shanmugan says, “Like my children, I love both of our theories equally, Justice Kagan.” She doesn’t seem amused and continues to press him. Only when he gets to the seriatim round does Shanmugam get to expound on the merits, though this is after Roberts turns to Thomas, who has no further questions, and then reflexively turns to Alito’s chair (which also has no questions). Before his time is up, Shanmugam is able to make a sweeping point that more than 60 municipalities across the country have filed some three dozen similar lawsuits seeking to hold oil and gas companies liable for damages related to greenhouse gas emissions. “I would submit that, given the extraordinary magnitude of these cases, where, in each of these cases, plaintiffs are seeking billions of dollars of damages, that we need an answer to this question sooner rather than later,” he says. Sarah Harris, the current principal deputy solicitor general arguing in support of the petitioners, argues that the Colorado Supreme Court treated the case as a self-contained original proceeding, and thus the U.S. Supreme Court has jurisdiction to review that court’s ruling allowing the lawsuit to proceed. Kevin Russell, representing the two Boulders and their officials, makes a few merits points before saying, “all of this must await another case because petitioners have failed to establish this Court's jurisdiction to hear this interlocutory appeal.” Roberts, who had suggested to Harris that this suit may not be different from other mass tort suits the Supreme Court has allowed to proceed in state court, takes a more skeptical tone with Russell. “If you prevail, the next day, a municipality in every single state will file a lawsuit—they’ll probably copy your pleadings—and then there will be at least 50, you know, different cities’ … causes of action filed,” the chief justice says. “[H]ow do you think that will work out on the ground?” Russell responds calmly, giving a little but saying, “the mere fact that … there could be a lot of litigation, I don't think there’s anything in the Constitution that says preemption arises from whenever, you know, a state law, if copied in other states, could cause a lot of litigation.” On rebuttal, Shanmugam takes one more stab at emphasizing the scope of the climate lawsuits that he is hoping the court will nip in the bud. “The breadth of Boulder's theory here is astonishing,” he says, “[t]here is no limit under Boulder's theory on who could be sued.” Under the lawsuit’s theory, he adds, “Boulder could tag me with personal jurisdiction when I am in Colorado in two weeks and sue me on a nuisance claim for refilling my car and thereby contributing to global climate change.” Shanmugam concludes by saying, “[T]his case and others like it reflect an all-too-regrettable trend of trying to resolve major political issues in court rather than leaving them to the political branches where they belong. Climate change is certainly one of the most pressing issues of the day, but we would submit that this is exactly the wrong way to go about resolving it.” With that, Roberts says the case is submitted, and many in the courtroom stand to leave. During this commotion, Alito slips in from the center curtain with a slight smile on his face and moves to his place on the bench. During the next argument , on veterans’ benefits , he will be back at home asking tough questions of counsel, rather than sitting around in his chambers, or perhaps worse, answering questions from news reporters, even if it is to promote his book.
Oct 5, 2026 · bySCOTUSblog
Court sends mixed signals on whether it will allow state-tort suits seeking to hold energy companies liable for climate change to go forward
The Supreme Court on Monday opened its new term by hearing arguments in a lawsuit filed in state court by the city and county of Boulder, Colorado, seeking to hold two major energy companies responsible for their alleged role in climate change and its impact. After nearly two hours of debate in Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County , it wasn’t clear whether a majority of the justices agreed with the energy companies that federal law prohibits Boulder’s claims. With Justice Samuel Alito recused from the dispute, a 4-4 tie would leave the ruling by the Colorado Supreme Court, allowing Boulder’s case to move forward, in place. Monday’s argument was the latest chapter in an eight-year-old battle that began when Boulder filed a lawsuit in a state court in Colorado against two energy companies: Suncor, a subsidiary of one of Canada’s largest energy companies, which operates the only two oil refineries in Colorado; and ExxonMobil, the largest energy company in the United States. It is seeking compensation for some of the costs that it has incurred as a result of the alleged effects of climate change – for example, protecting its own property as well as that of its residents. Boulder contends that both energy companies have long deceived the public about the effects of climate change and the role of fossil-fuel products in creating those effects; it also contended that the companies played a role in climate change by producing, refining, and marketing fossil fuels. After their efforts to move the case to federal court failed, the energy companies asked the state trial court to dismiss the case, but it turned down that request. The Colorado Supreme Court then agreed to decide whether Boulder’s state-law claims were trumped by federal law. It concluded that they were not, and its claims could go forward. The companies came to the Supreme Court last year, asking the justices to weigh in, which they agreed in February to do. Representing the energy companies, lawyer Kannon Shanmugam described Boulder’s claims as an “unprecedented effort to use state law to regulate global conduct.” The Constitution, he said, bars the application of state law to “certain inherently federal areas,” and the Supreme Court has long held that federal law governs interstate-pollution claims. Moreover, he added, a state cannot regulate out-of-state conduct “based solely on attenuated effects” that it might have within the state. Chief Justice John Roberts appeared skeptical, however. He suggested to both Shanmugam and Sarah Harris, the principal deputy U.S. solicitor general who argued on behalf of the Trump administration in support of the energy companies, that it was not uncommon for lawsuits to be based on conduct that occurs outside a state but has broad “effects,” including within the state. He asked Harris “what makes this situation different from those” other cases in which the court allowed lawsuits to proceed in state court. Harris answered that, unlike those lawsuits, Colorado would ban the production of fossil fuels anywhere in the country. Roberts did not appear persuaded. “That’s a question of relief” for Colorado, “and what might be available,” he said. It did not, in his view, necessarily seem to go to the question of whether Colorado could bring the lawsuit at all. Justice Elena Kagan also seemed dubious of the energy companies’ arguments. She told Shanmugam that Boulder’s “suit appears to be based on the old 1990s tobacco suits,” as well as more recent lawsuits against opioid manufacturers. Were those lawsuits also trumped by federal law, she asked? Shanmugam pushed back, describing the tobacco and opioid lawsuits as different. He stressed that the injury at the center of Boulder’s case “is not suffered by the Colorado consumer in the traditional sense.” He then pointed back to the principle that federal law has traditionally applied to claims involving interstate air and water pollution. Kagan remained doubtful, asking Shanmugam to point to the support for that argument in the text of the Constitution or federal law or in the Supreme Court’s cases. “Where,” she finally asked, “is the[re] anything for that?” Representing Boulder, lawyer Kevin Russell echoed Roberts’ point, telling the justices that states have long had the power to provide court remedies for injuries that occur within their borders even when the conduct that caused those injuries occurred elsewhere. Applying state law, he said, has never been interpreted as projecting that law nationwide. And he emphasized that Congress has the authority to pass laws that preempt state laws if and when it wants to. Russell faced tough questioning, however, from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was the member of the court most supportive of the energy companies’ position. He pointed to a series of Supreme Court cases that, in his words, “make crystal-clear that interstate air and water pollution are matters for federal law” unless Congress specifies otherwise. In Kavanaugh’s view, those cases mean that state law generally does not apply to claims like Boulder’s, and Congress could believe that interstate-pollution issues are federal issues – and that it therefore does not need to pass new legislation to say so explicitly. Several justices expressed concern about the possibility that allowing Boulder’s lawsuit to go forward would open the floodgates to even more cases in other states around the country. Justice Clarence Thomas asked Russell to describe any principles that might restrict whom state and local governments could sue. Russell cited constraints on a state’s jurisdiction over particular defendants and a constitutional doctrine (known as the dormant commerce clause) that bars states from discriminating against out-of-state defendants, among other things, as possible limiting principles. That prompted Thomas to ask whether, under Boulder’s theory, state and local governments could also sue “large retailers” of fossil fuels. Russell acknowledged that “[n]othing in our theory prevents that,” but he added that “when lots of people act together to cause widespread harm, it is not uncommon for multiple different defendants to be potentially liable.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett also sought to test the limits of Boulder’s theory, asking Russell whether Colorado could pass a law that sought to cap greenhouse-gas emissions in the other 49 states as well. Russell agreed that such a law would be prohibited and sought to distinguish that scenario from Boulder’s lawsuit. He emphasized that, with the lawsuit, Boulder wasn’t trying to directly regulate the energy companies’ actions. The lawsuit, he argued, “doesn’t prohibit them from engaging in the conduct.” Instead, he said, “[i]t requires them to internalize a portion of the cost of their activities by paying for some of the damage that those activities inflict.” Shanmugam picked up on these concerns in his rebuttal, telling the court that the “breadth of Boulder’s theory here is astonishing.” Indeed, he suggested, it would mean that on an upcoming visit to Colorado, Boulder could sue him “for refilling my car and thereby contributing to global climate change.” Moreover, he suggested, it would not be only state and local governments who could sue under Boulder’s theory, but “[a]ny individual who has suffered the effects of climate change.” “Climate change,” he concluded, “is certainly one of the most pressing issues of the day, but we would submit that this is exactly the wrong way to go about resolving it.” However the court opts to resolve the case, the justices devoted relatively little time to whether the Supreme Court has the power to consider the energy companies’ appeal at all – a question that the justices had asked the litigants to address when they agreed to take up the case earlier this year. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared the most interested in the question, which would provide an off-ramp that would allow the justices to avoid deciding the merits of the dispute for now, but it received little traction elsewhere.
Oct 5, 2026 · bySCOTUSblog
Supreme Court Takes Up Boulder Climate Suit Against Exxon and Suncor
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about whether a lawsuit filed in state court in Colorado seeking damages from two major oil companies for the climate-change related damage inflicted on Boulder County can go forward. Here's the short version: The Canadian-based Suncor Energy Inc. and Texas-based ExxonMobil say that policies regarding climate change and any alleged damages resulting from it are matters for the federal government and courts only and that therefore the state suit should not be allowed to go forward. Boulder County…
US supreme court to hear big oil’s bid to block climate damage lawsuits
Court starts new term hearing Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil’s attempt to stop lawsuits at state level The US supreme court begins its new nine-month term hearing arguments Monday in a high-stakes case in whichbig oil companies are attempting to strike a fatal blow against lawsuits that seek to hold them accountable for the climate crisis. In Suncor Energy versus the County Commissioners of Boulder County , local officials in Boulder are suing Suncor Energy and ExxonMobil in state court to force the companies to share a portion of the costs that climate change has imposed on local taxpayers. However, Exxon and Canada-based Suncor are arguing that federal law prevents state courts from hearing Boulder’s climate change lawsuit. Continue reading...
Oct 5, 2026 · byThe Guardian
Listen live: Supreme Court kicks off new term with major climate case
The Supreme Court kicks off its new term Monday with a major climate case that could shape efforts by state and local governments to seek damages from fossil fuel companies over global warming. The justices will hear Suncor v. Boulder, an appeal of a Colorado Supreme Court ruling allowing the city and county of Boulder,…
Oct 5, 2026 · byThe Hill
Grand openings: what four introductions in Suncor v. Boulder show about starting a brief
When the court opens its term on Monday with the blockbuster case Suncor Energy Inc. v. County Commissioners of Boulder County , the justices will have digested four principal briefs. They are Suncor Energy and the other energy companies’ opening brief (Kannon Shanmugam), the United States’ amicus brief supporting the energy companies (Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris), Boulder’s brief (Kevin Russell), and the energy companies’ reply . The merits question is whether federal law bars state-law claims for injuries attributed to interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions. But this post is for anyone who writes briefs, in the Supreme Court or in any court, and it is about the introduction: the prime real estate that offers the court a frame for all the law and facts to follow. Each introduction combines, in its own recipe, the four techniques I outline in my book on legal advocacy, “Point Made” : Brass Tacks , the narrative lens explaining “who, what, when, where, why, how.” The Short List , the logical lens numbering your path to victory. Why Should I Care? , the pragmatic lens giving the court a reason to want to find for you. And Flashpoint , the contrasting lens drawing a line in the sand. The way each side navigates these introductions, each under 1,000 words, also reveals what it sees as its strengths and weaknesses. Brass Tacks: who, what, when, where, why, how Even, or especially, when the legal issues are abstract, the best introductions spin a narrative line showing how the parties reached an impasse and how the court should guide them out of it. Call it a Tale of Four Briefs. What story does each tell? For the energy companies: A city and a county in Colorado have sued “two of the world’s countless fossil-fuel producers” for local harms at the end of a global chain, in which production and marketing “resulted in consumers’ use of fossil fuels around the world, which released . . . emissions, which combined with all other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to alter the global climate, which then resulted in localized physical harms in Boulder.” There’s the causal chain in one sentence. For the government: A single city wants the law of a single state to dictate how the world addresses a global problem: by penalizing conduct “outside Colorado,” much of it “entirely overseas,” for harms in Boulder “from wildfire damage to public-health costs.” The introduction also issues a verdict on this tale: “Absolutely not.” For Boulder: Petitioners “have run to this Court at the case’s outset” to ask for a rule that Congress, not courts, should make. The case is “far from final judgment,” and the Colorado Supreme Court has not yet decided whether respondents have stated a claim under state law. It’s a procedural tale of when and why, but with no concrete narrative of local injuries: Boulder never appears, and Colorado appears only in the name of its highest court. Recounting the injury tale would mean tracing the energy companies’ causal chain; the procedural opening keeps the focus instead on institutional authority and timing. For the energy companies’ reply: Four sentences recast the energy companies’ account of who, what, and why as propositions that, the reply says, Boulder “do[es] not dispute.” That is Brass Tacks used to pull the court back to the energy companies’ story – and to ask the court to treat its factual premises as common ground so that the fight is over their legal effects. For your own brief: Answer the questions you’d have if you were reading about your case online, spin the answers to your client’s advantage while sounding like an honest broker, and know which questions you’re leaving for another party to answer. Shape the story through characters, not characterizations: who gets named, who gets a label, and who gets which verbs. In a reply, use a narrative line to reorient the court: who is involved, what the dispute is about, what your client wants now, and why your client still deserves it. The Short List: number your path to victory The Short List consists of the three or four points you would make to a judge who gave you only 60 seconds to speak. The points must also work as a unit: what does each of these promise, and do they relate to one another as rungs (each a fallback for the one above), gates (reasons the court can abstain from action), or axes (independent grounds that add up)? Here is how I would distill each introduction’s path to victory. (By “introduction” I mean each brief’s opening overview, labeled or not.) The energy companies’ opening brief: rungs on a ladder, all resting on one premise – that the claims target interstate and international emissions Structure: the states “surrendered” their ability to redress transboundary issues such as climate change when they entered the union. Displacement: displacing federal common law “did not invite state law to apply in this area for the first time.” Foreign affairs: the claims reach emissions “outside the United States,” where the federal government is “the Nation’s exclusive voice.” Preemption: the Clean Air Act bars the claims “by its own force.” The government: axes, independent and cumulative Horizontal federalism: “no one State can superimpose its own regulatory preferences on the rest,” whether the bar is called structural, due process, the dormant commerce clause, or “an exclusively federal area.” Vertical federalism: suits like Boulder’s leave “subsets of the United States” effectively negotiating against it. The statute: with the Clean Air Act, Congress delegated to the EPA “the decision whether and how to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions from powerplants.” Boulder: gates, loosely speaking, united by restraint (who decides, when, and by what method) Wrong forum: Congress, not courts acting “on their own authority,” decides whether these harms belong at the federal level. Wrong time: the case is “far from final judgment.” Wrong arguments: there is no structural bar and no Clean Air Act preemption. Hence the relief line: “dismiss or affirm.” The energy companies’ reply: the opening list, restructured and reinforced Structure: petitioners read the federalism reasoning of precedent to bar one state’s law from governing climate claims even against emitters and to argue that claims against producers are even weaker. Extraterritoriality, which the opening brief elsewhere calls “closely related” to the structural bar, now earns its own mini-argument: a state cannot regulate “global conduct with undifferentiated global effects.” Foreign affairs: state law would infringe “the exclusive role of the President and Congress in foreign affairs.” The statute: “far from authorizing” state law, the Clean Air Act “independently preempts” it. What to take from the four sets: Decide whether your reasons are rungs, gates, or axes, and order them the way you’d deliver them if the judge asked you why you should win. Add “because” to each draft reason and finish with a detail specific to your dispute, not to just any dispute with the same procedural posture. In a reply, preserve the logic of your opening even if you change the order or emphasis, and respond to the other side without letting it dictate your structure. Stress why you’re still right, and claim only the concessions that the record and authorities support. Why Should I Care? Give the court a reason to want to find for you This technique gives the court a reason to feel good about finding for you, usually by triggering one of three judicial fears if it were to decide the other way: misconstruing a doctrine or statute; creating new duties, rules, or defenses; or reaching an unfair result or causing harm. Gauge this part of the introduction by the anxiety it triggers or relieves. The energy companies’ opening brief: an unfair result and harm, at national scale, without naming petitioner ExxonMobil in the introduction, which keeps attention on harm to others rather than on the petitioners themselves Scale: a ruling for Boulder lets “all fifty States, the tens of thousands of municipalities, and even the hundreds of millions of individuals in our country” ask local courts to establish “countless, conflicting climate policies for the Nation.” Ruin: the energy companies quote “a member of respondents’ legal team” – identified later in the brief as David Bookbinder – to portray the litigation as an enormous “carbon tax” that could “bankrupt[]” the energy industry, so the harshest characterization is attributed to Boulder’s own side. Chaos: one jury means “chaos,” and juries nationwide mean “disaster.” The government: harm to the federal system, tested through a hypothetical Collapse: the federal system “would disintegrate” if each state could force its prescriptions on “the other 49.” The analogy: Oregon penalizing cruise lines for pandemics that strain its hospitals, a test of the principle on facts removed from the climate dispute. Divided loyalty: Boulder and dozens of other states and localities would be “effectively negotiating against” the United States. Insolvency: liability “so unending and extreme that fossil-fuel producers may be forced out of business.” Boulder: misconstruing a doctrine and creating a new rule, a matter of method rather than scale Prematurity: the court would intervene before final judgment, based on an injury to petitioners that Boulder calls “entirely speculative,” before the Colorado Supreme Court has addressed the claims’ sufficiency under state law. A new rule: Boulder warns that the energy companies’ implied structural bar threatens products-liability, antitrust, fraud, and defamation law. A misread statute: Boulder argues that the energy companies adopt an interpretation of the Clean Air Act that would “condemn a host of unobjectionable laws” such as gasoline taxes and energy-efficiency rules. The reply: the opening brief’s scale argument, compressed into two images The problem of forum shopping: suits against “arbitrary groups of defendants in handpicked forums.” Policy by jury: a Boulder jury able to make “national and international energy policy.” Notice, too, that Boulder does not foreground residents’ injuries in the introduction. Rather, Boulder includes those harms at the start of the opening statement instead. The effect is to keep the opening focused on institutional authority and procedural restraint rather than on the causal chain that the energy companies emphasize. For your own brief: Trigger at least one judicial fear: misconstruing the law, creating new law, or reaching an unfair result. If your client is an unsympathetic conglomerate, suggest that defeat would be bad for others, too. Avoid the phrase “slippery slope.” Show the slope instead by naming the ordinary cases a ruling would sweep in. Give the judge a pragmatic reason to want to rule for you and borrow the proof elsewhere when you can: the other side’s words first, the court’s next, your own characterizations last. Flashpoint: draw a line in the sand A Flashpoint draws a line in the sand between two competing views of the dispute so that you can preempt your opponent’s attempts to make the case into something it’s not. The energy companies’ opening brief: scale, global against local, which makes the suit itself sound unprecedented Global against local: an “inherently interstate and international challenge” against “the mechanism of state tort law,” restated at the close as “State tort law is not the solution to global climate change.” Institutions: Boulder’s position pits the political branches against “even a single jury.” Causation: “all of humanity’s emissions” against “only a tiny fraction” from these energy companies’ products, making the causal attribution to two producers look disproportionate. The government: question and answer, then anaphora One city against the world: “Can one city wield one State’s law to dictate how the rest of the world must address a global problem with global effects?” “Absolutely not.” Congress against Boulder: “Whereas Congress targeted only domestic emissions, Boulder would regulate the world.” The paired “Whereas Congress ... Boulder would” clauses cast Congress as the rule-setter and Boulder as the disruptor. The statute: state law as a supplement to the Clean Air Act against state law as its “nemesis.” Boulder: normalcy against novelty Institutions: deciding whether these harms are better addressed at the federal level, which “the Constitution almost always assigns to Congress,” against barring suits “on [courts’] own authority” – a line Boulder borrows from the court itself – a great example of putting the court’s words before your own. Method: “traditional authority” (the states’ power to address in-state harms) and “normal statutory construction” (ordinary preemption analysis of the Clean Air Act) against “something implicit in the Constitution” (the energy companies’ structural bar, which Boulder believes they infer from the Constitution’s design rather than from any actual clause). The suit: state plaintiffs against local-government plaintiffs (“non-states”), an order to stop polluting against damages, emissions against “deceptive marketing and sales,” all in one sentence that separates this suit from the old interstate-pollution cases. In those cases, a state sued to make out-of-state polluters stop polluting; here, local governments seek money from companies for how they deceptively marketed and sold their products. Each contrast casts Boulder’s suit as an ordinary state-law tort claim, so the novelty lies in the energy companies’ attempt to stretch those precedents to a type of suit that they never covered. The energy companies’ reply: concede and split Novel against settled: “while the litigation may be novel, the principles barring the claims are not.” Granting that the litigation is “novel” shifts attention to the asserted familiarity of the governing principles and recasts the energy companies as the traditionalists. Causation: emitters against producers “further removed in the causal chain.” Boulder distinguishes the old pollution cases because they targeted the plants releasing the gases, whereas Boulder is suing producers that sold fuel others burned and, Boulder says, misled the public about it. The reply accepts the distinction but turns it against Boulder: if state law cannot reach the emitters, it cannot reach producers who are even further from the harm. For your own brief: Draw a line in the sand between two competing views of the dispute, with your side on ground the court already trusts. If their framing is partly correct, concede what is true and contest what matters: the reply allows that the litigation is new but denies that the law is. Check whether your word choices adopt the other side’s frame. If their signature words often appear in your own draft, recast the subject unless you can use their terms against them in your argument. When the key distinctions from a precedent form a pattern, link them together in a single sentence. Before you file The energy companies make the state-tort litigation sound novel and the principles barring it settled. Boulder makes the state-law remedies sound ordinary and the proposed bar novel. Both sides want the same advantage: to make the other side explain why the court should depart from familiar ground. Before you file, ask whether your introduction does the same.
Oct 5, 2026 · bySCOTUSblog
Live updates: Supreme Court opens term with climate change case
The Supreme Court opens its new term on Monday with oral arguments in a major climate case that could determine the future of state and local efforts to recover damages from fossil fuel companies over their role in global warming. Suncor v. Boulder is an appeal of a Colorado Supreme Court decision that allowed claims…
Oct 5, 2026 · byThe Hill
Supreme Court to hear case Monday on if localities can sue oil companies for climate damages
The Supreme Court will hear a major climate case on Monday that could determine the future of state and local efforts to recover damages from fossil fuel companies over their role in global warming. The case in question, Suncor v. Boulder, is an appeal of a Colorado Supreme Court decision that allowed claims of climate…
Oct 5, 2026 · byThe Hill