Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Healey
| Decision Date | 15 March 2022 |
| Docket Number | 18-1170 |
| Parties | Exxon Mobil Corporation, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MAURA TRACY HEALEY, in her official capacity as ATTORNEY GENERAL OF MASSACHUSETTS, and LETITIA JAMES, in her official capacity as ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NEW YORK, [*] Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Argued: February 18, 2020
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York No. 17-cv-2301, Valerie Caproni, Judge.
Plaintiff-Appellant Exxon Mobil Corporation appeals the dismissal of its complaint against the New York and Massachusetts Attorneys General, which alleged that the states' investigations into Exxon's purportedly deceptive speech regarding climate change were motivated by viewpoint discrimination and violated Exxon's constitutional rights. During the pendency of this appeal, the New York Attorney General closed the New York investigation and commenced an enforcement action, which resolved in Exxon's favor and is not being appealed by the state. Because these events have mooted Exxon's claims against the New York Attorney General, we lack jurisdiction over those claims. As to Exxon's claims against the Massachusetts Attorney General, Exxon could have pursued the relief it now seeks in an earlier Massachusetts state court proceeding arising from the same events that underlie the present suit; its claims against the Massachusetts Attorney General are thus barred under the doctrine of res judicata.
We therefore dismiss the appeal as to the New York Attorney General and affirm the district court's judgment as to the Massachusetts Attorney General.
Dismissed in part and affirmed in part.
Justin Anderson, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP Washington, District of Columbia (Theodore V. Wells, Jr. Daniel J. Toal, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, New York, New York; Patrick J. Conlon, Daniel E. Bolia Exxon Mobil Corporation, Spring, Texas, on the brief), for Plaintiff-Appellant Exxon Mobil Corporation.
Seth Schofield, Assistant Attorney General (Richard A. Johnston, Melissa A. Hoffer, Christophe G. Courchesne, Amanda Morejon, Assistant Attorneys General, on the brief), for Maura T. Healey, Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Office of the Attorney General of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, for Defendant-Appellee Attorney General of Massachusetts.
Anisha S. Dasgupta, Deputy Solicitor General (Scott A. Eisman, Assistant Solicitor General, on the brief), for Letitia James, Attorney General of the State of New York, New York, New York, for Defendant-Appellee Attorney General of New York.
Jeffrey C. Mateer, First Assistant Attorney General, Brantley D. Starr, Deputy First Assistant Attorney General, James E. Davis, Deputy Attorney General for Civil Litigation, David J. Hacker, Special Counsel for Civil Litigation, for Ken Paxton, Attorney General of Texas, Austin, Texas; Steve Marshall, Attorney General of Alabama; Leslie Rutledge, Attorney General of Arkansas; Christopher M. Carr, Attorney General of Georgia; Jeff Landry, Attorney General of Louisiana; Paul R. LePage, Governor of Maine; Phil Bryant, Governor of Mississippi; Doug Peterson, Attorney General of Nebraska; Mike Hunter, Attorney General of Oklahoma; Alan Wilson, Attorney General of South Carolina; Brad Schimel, Attorney General of Wisconsin, for Amici Curiae States of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin, and Phil Bryant, Governor of Mississippi and Paul R. LePage, Governor of Maine in support of Plaintiff-Appellant.
Megan L. Brown, Richard W. Smith, Wiley Rein LLP, Washington, District of Columbia, for Amici Curiae National Association of Manufacturers and Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America in support of Plaintiff-Appellant.
Shanna M. Cleveland, Ronald A. Fein, Lisa Danetz, Free Speech for People, Newton, Massachusetts, and Steven H. Shiffrin, Cornell Law School, Ithaca, New York, for Amici Curiae Michael C. Dorf, Robert S. Stevens Professor of Law, Cornell Law School; Daniel J.H. Greenwood, Professor of Law, Deane School of Law, Hofstra University; Steven Heyman, Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law; Robert Kerr, Edith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professor, Gaylord College, University of Oklahoma; Douglas Kysar, Deputy Dean and Joseph M. Field '55 Professor of Law, Yale Law School; Helen Norton, Professor and Ira C. Rothgerber, Jr. Chair in Constitutional Law, University of Colorado School of Law; Tamara R. Piety, Professor of Law, University of Tulsa, College of Law; Frank Pasquale, Professor of Law, University of Maryland; Catherine J. Ross, Fred C. Stevenson Research Professor, George Washington University Law School; and Laurence H. Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard Law School in support of Defendants-Appellees.
Edward Notis-McConarty, M. Patrick Moore, Jr., Vanessa A. Arslanian, Hemenway & Barnes LLP, Boston, MA, for Amici Curiae Martha Coakley, Thomas Reilly, Scott Harshbarger, James M. Shannon, and Francis X. Bellotti, Former Attorneys General of Massachusetts in support of Defendants-Appellees.
Jillian A. Lazar, Director of Investor Protection, Marion Quirk, Joseph E. Gibbs-Tabler, Deputy Attorneys General, for Matthew P. Denn, Attorney General of Delaware, Wilmington, Delaware; Benjamin Gutman, Solicitor General, Adam Holbrook, Assistant Attorney General, for Ellen F. Rosenblum, Attorney General of Oregon, Salem, Oregon; Xavier Becerra, Attorney General of California, Sacramento, California; George Jepsen, Attorney General of Connecticut, Hartford, Connecticut; Russell A. Suzuki, Attorney General of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii; Lisa Madigan, Attorney General of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois; Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General of Iowa, Des Moines, Iowa; Janet T. Mills, Attorney General of Maine, Augusta, Maine; Brian E. Frosh, Attorney General of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland; Lori Swanson, Attorney General of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota; Jim Hood, Attorney General of Mississippi, Jackson, Mississippi; Gurbir S. Grewal, Attorney General of New Jersey, Trenton, New Jersey; Hector Balderas, Attorney General of New Mexico, Santa Fe, New Mexico; Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General of North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina; Josh Shapiro, Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Peter F. Kilmartin, Attorney General of Rhode Island, Providence, Rhode Island; Thomas J. Donovan, Jr., Attorney General of Vermont, Montpelier, Vermont; Mark R. Herring, Attorney General of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia; Robert W. Ferguson, Attorney General of Washington, Olympia, Washington; Karl A. Racine, Attorney General for the District of Columbia, Washington, District of Columbia, for Amici Curiae States of California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and the District of Columbia in support of Defendants-Appellees.
Before: Kearse, Sullivan, and Bianco, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff-Appellant Exxon Mobil Corporation ("Exxon") appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Caproni, J.), dismissing its complaint against Defendants-Appellees Maura Healey, in her official capacity as Attorney General of Massachusetts, and Letitia James, in her official capacity as Attorney General of New York, and denying leave to amend the complaint as futile. The case, which developed a complex procedural background before reaching the Southern District of New York, first originated in 2016 when Exxon sued the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts (the "states") under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 - and their state-law analogs - principally seeking an order barring those states from investigating whether Exxon misled investors and the public regarding the company's knowledge about climate change. Among other things, Exxon alleged that the states' investigations into Exxon's purportedly deceptive speech concerning climate change were motivated by viewpoint discrimination and violated Exxon's constitutional rights.
In 2018, the district court dismissed Exxon's claims against the Massachusetts Attorney General, finding that the lawsuit was precluded by res judicata because Exxon had litigated or could have litigated the present claims in an earlier state proceeding. It dismissed Exxon's claims against the New York Attorney General for failure to state a claim and denied as futile Exxon's motion for leave to file a second amended complaint.
On appeal, Exxon challenges both grounds for dismissal and the denial of leave to amend, contending that it stated plausible constitutional claims which were not barred by res judicata as to the Massachusetts Attorney General. Exxon also more specifically argues that the district court failed to address Exxon's viewpoint discrimination claim, improperly analyzed Exxon's allegations and demanded evidence, and drew inferences in favor of the Attorneys General. During the pendency of the appeal, the New York Attorney General concluded the New York investigation after commencing an enforcement action, which eventually resulted in a judgment in Exxon's favor. We therefore grant the New York Attorney General's motion to dismiss the appeal on the ground that Exxon's claims against her are moot. We also affirm the district court's determination that Exxon's claims against the Massachusetts Attorney General are precluded by the doctrine of res judicata.
In 2015 and 2016, respectively, the Attorneys General of New York and...
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