First of all, don’t mess with Texas.
Second, if you’re foolish enough to try that, plan on messing with Texas in Texas, because our state’s long-arm statute gives us the home-field advantage.
That’s the gist of the argument that ExxonMobil is making to the Texas Supreme Court in response to the Left Coast loonies who are challenging the application of our state’s long-arm statute to the lawfare suit they’re trying to use to make the energy giant pay for bogus climate-change damages allegedly inflicted on their California municipalities by fossil fuels.
The Californians “feign surprise at finding themselves in a Texas courtroom,” Exxon attorneys wrote in a brief submitted to the high court last week.
“They deny any contact with Texas arising from their use of litigation to coerce Texas-based energy companies to adopt California’s political stance on energy policy,” the brief continues. “In their telling, all they have done is file ‘lawsuit[s] seeking economic relief from harm to California property.
“These California officials disagree with Texas energy policy and targeted leading members of Texas’s energy sector to undermine that policy.”
Initially, Exxon petitioned Tarrant County District Court for pre-suit discovery for a counter suit, accusing California officials of conspiring to make energy companies pay for purported and anticipated damages to their localities allegedly caused by fossil fuels.
The municipalities unsuccessfully challenged the trial court’s jurisdiction, but won on appeal. The appellate court overturned the lower court ruling, concluding that the out-of-state actors “lack sufficient contacts for a Texas court to exercise specific jurisdiction.”
Exxon petitioned the Texas Supreme Court for review, arguing that “potential defendants use tort suits to impose their preferred climate and energy policies on Texas” and “seek to wrest Texas policy decisions from Texas citizens by diminishing the pocketbooks and stifling the speech of its industry.”
If the Californians didn’t want to mess with Texas in Texas, they shouldn’t have messed with Texas in the first place. Our state Supreme Court should reaffirm Tarrant County District Court’s original decision.