The case was the People of the State of New York v. Exxon Mobil Corp., which concluded last week. It is part of a wave of litigation directed at the titans of the fossil fuel industry making its way through courts across the country. “It’s only the second climate-change case ever to go to trial in the United States,” Michael Gerrard, a Columbia Law School professor and one of the world’s leading experts on climate liability litigation...“And it’s the first where the plaintiffs were able to obtain discovery from any of the fossil-fuel companies.”...Should New York Attorney General Letitia James succeed in the case, Exxon Mobil could be on the hook for up to $1.6 billion in damages...

As reporters stood in line waiting for opening arguments to begin in New York, news broke that the Supreme Court had rejected a plea from more than two dozen multinational energy companies, Exxon Mobil included, to block a state-level lawsuit filed by the city of Baltimore — one of more than a dozen filed by state and local governments across the country. The suit is one of several “public nuisance” cases with the potential to open the fossil fuel industry up to liability for its climate impacts in individual localities and communities...

Citing the journalism that revealed Exxon’s “pattern of deception” in 2015, the complaint went on to argue that the “gravity of ExxonMobil’s historic and continuing unlawful actions cannot be overstated; the world lost 40 critical years to develop and deploy new technologies that would allow an orderly transition away from fossil fuels. ExxonMobil’s deception deprived investors and consumers of the central facts so essential to their investment and purchasing choices..."