After three and a half years of litigation, Multnomah County’s landmark climate accountability lawsuit has cleared another major hurdle. In a November 2, 2026 order, Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Adele J. Ridenour rejected the fossil fuel defendants’ first round of efforts to dismiss the County’s case, allowing the lawsuit to proceed against nearly all of the defendants. The Court denied the defendants’ joint motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, brought on behalf of approximately 20 defendants, as well as separate jurisdictional motions filed by Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Koch Industries, and the American Petroleum Institute. The Court also denied the defendants’ joint motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim.
The ruling represents a significant step forward for Multnomah County’s effort to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for the local costs of climate change. Among other rulings, the Court rejected defendants’ arguments that the County’s claims are barred by federal preemption, present a nonjusticiable political question, or violate separation-of-powers principles. The Court’s order does not resolve all the defendants’ pending motions or decide the ultimate merits of the County’s claims. But after years of defendants seeking to prevent the case from moving forward, the Court has now rejected this first round of threshold challenges, permitting the County’s claims against the remaining defendants to proceed.
See also:
Judge Ridenour’s November 2, 2026, Order on Defendants’ Motions to Dismiss