Court Grants US Government's Request To Terminate Juliana v. US Youth Climate Case

A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court has shut down a rights-based climate lawsuit brought by 21 young people against the US federal government before the case could get to trial. With the court’s order this time, it appears the landmark case could be permanently ended.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday ordered the Juliana v. United States youth civil rights lawsuit be dismissed once and for all without exceptions. In its ruling, the court granted a petition from the US Department of Justice, representing the government defendants, to supersede the trial court’s authority through an extraordinarily rare legal maneuver called a writ of mandamus. The government’s petition, filed in February, sought to reverse a decision from US District Judge Ann Aiken last year that greenlighted a revised and narrower version of the case for trial.

Originally filed in 2015, the Juliana case challenged the US government’s systemic policies and actions that perpetuate fossil fuels and exacerbate the climate crisis. Arguing that the government knowingly endangers the nation’s children through its actions that contribute to climate change, the 21 youth plaintiffs asserted violations of their fundamental rights under the US Constitution and contended that a stable climate system is a precondition for guaranteeing those rights. Judge Aiken concurred when she wrote in a 2016 opinion denying the government’s first attempt to toss the case: “Exercising my ‘reasoned judgment,’ I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society.”

The case survived multiple bids from the Department of Justice to thwart it and was scheduled to go to trial in October 2018, but the DOJ’s emergency petitions and a procedural intervention by the US Supreme Court derailed the trial schedule and led to the Ninth Circuit Court ultimately ordering (on a pre-trial appeal) that the case be dismissed; that 2-1 decision from a divided panel came out in January 2020. It could have been the end of the road for the Juliana plaintiffs, but they refused to give up and went back to Judge Aiken asking permission to amend their complaint. She granted their request in June 2023, reviving the case and setting it back on track for trial. Then the Department of Justice under the Biden administration resumed its relentless opposition and continued to try to block the case from reaching trial, almost a decade after it was first filed.

The ruling from the Ninth Circuit panel on Wednesday seems to effectively quash the case for good, as it orders Judge Aiken to dismiss the suit “forthwith” and “without leave to amend”, meaning without allowing any revisions or exceptions.

Youth plaintiffs and their attorneys responded to the ruling by expressing deep concern and disappointment.

“Today’s decision by a panel of three Trump-appointed judges is wrong on the law and has a chilling effect,” said Julia Olson, founder and chief legal counsel at Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit law firm representing young people in rights-based climate cases against governments. “A declaration of our constitutional rights by the courts is one of the few things that has moved our nation to greater justice and equality throughout history. The court’s opinion that declaring dangerous and discriminatory government systems unconstitutional doesn’t matter, is simply false. Adults continue to discriminate against young people in profoundly harmful ways, and this ruling greenlights these harms.”

“I have been pleading for my government to hear our case since I was ten years old, and I am now nearly 19. A functioning democracy would not make a child beg for their rights to be protected in the courts, just to be ignored nearly a decade later. I am fed up with the continuous attempts to squash this case and silence our voices,” said plaintiff Avery McRae.

According to the Our Children’s Trust webpage for the case, the youth plaintiffs are not giving up and are “now considering their options to move forward.”

“This is a tragic and unjust ruling, but it is not over,” Olson said. “President Biden can still make this right by coming to the settlement table. And the full Ninth Circuit can correct this mistake. We will never give up fighting for the constitutional rights of our children and a livable planet for future generations.”