American Electric Power Co. v. Connecticut
| American Electric Power Company v. Connecticut | |
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| Argued April 19, 2011 Decided June 20, 2011 |
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| Full case name | American Electric Power Company, Inc., et al., v. Connecticut |
| Docket nos. | 10-174 |
| Citations | 564 U.S. 410 (more) |
| Prior history | Dismissed, 406 F. Supp. 2d 265 (S.D.N.Y. 2005); vacated and remanded, 582 F. 3d 309 (2nd Cir. 2009); certiorari granted, 562 U.S. 1091 (2010) |
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| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Ginsburg, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Breyer, Kagan |
| Concurrence | Alito, joined by Thomas |
| Sotomayor took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
American Electric Power Company v. Connecticut, 564 U.S. 410 (2011), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court, in an 8–0 decision, held that corporations cannot be sued for greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) under federal common law, primarily because the Clean Air Act (CAA) delegates the management of carbon dioxide and other GHG emissions to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Brought to court in July 2004 in the Southern District of New York, this was the first global warming case based on a public nuisance claim.
Eight states, the City of New York, and three land trusts, separately sued the same electric power corporations that owned and operated fossil-fuel-fired power plants in twenty states. The plaintiffs sought to cap-and-abate the defendants' GHG emissions under public nuisance law due to ongoing contributions to global warming. They alleged that the defendants are the five largest emitters of GHGs in the United States, collectively emitting 650 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. The plaintiffs claimed that by contributing to global warming the defendants are violating the federal common law of interstate nuisance.
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York dismissed both groups of plaintiffs' federal common law nuisance claims as non-justiciable under the political question doctrine, and the plaintiffs appealed. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated and remanded. The Second Circuit held that the lawsuits were not barred by the political question doctrine, and the plaintiffs had adequately alleged Article III standing.Certiorari was granted by the United States Supreme Court.
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