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Held v. State

Filing Date: 2020
Case Categories:
  • State Law Claims
    • Environmentalist Lawsuits
  • Public Trust Claims
Principal Laws:
Public Trust Doctrine, Montana Environmental Policy Act, Montana Constitution, Montana State Energy Policy
Description: Lawsuit seeking declaration of right under the Montana constitution to a stable climate system and to compel Montana to prepare and implement a remedial plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
  • Held v. State
    Docket number(s): n/a
    Court/Admin Entity: Mont. Dist. Ct.
    Case Documents:
    Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary
    03/13/2020 Complaint Download Complaint filed. Youth Plaintiffs Filed Climate Lawsuit Against Montana Asserting Violations of State Constitutional Rights. Sixteen young people filed a lawsuit in Montana state court asserting climate change-based claims under the Montana constitution against the State of Montana, its governor, and state agencies. In particular, the case challenges the constitutionality of Montana’s fossil fuel-based State Energy Policy and the “Climate Change Exception” in the Montana Environmental Policy Act. The plaintiffs allege that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions were “already triggering a host of adverse consequences in Montana, including dangerously increasing temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, increasing droughts and extreme weather events, increasing the frequency and severity of wildfires, increasing glacial melt, and causing numerous adverse health risks, especially to children,” and that defendants had continued “to act affirmatively to exacerbate the climate crisis” despite their awareness that the plaintiffs were living under “dangerous climatic conditions that create an unreasonable risk of harm.” The plaintiffs seek a declaration that their right to a clean and healthful environment includes a right a stable climate system, as well as declarations that the State Energy Policy and the Climate Change Exception violate the Public Trust Doctrine and constitutional provisions that protect the right to a clean and healthful environment; the right to seek safety, health, and happiness; and the right to individual dignity and equal protection. They also seek injunctive relief in the form of orders directing the defendants to prepare an accounting of Montana’s greenhouse gas emissions and to develop and implement a remedial plan to reduce emissions “consistent with the best available science and reductions necessary to protect Youth Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights from further infringement … , and to reduce the cumulative risk of harm to those rights.”

© 2021 · Sabin Center for Climate Change Law · U.S. Litigation Chart made in collaboration with Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP

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