One of my recurring missions is the effort to assist the readership in identifying the stupidest litigation that has been brought anywhere in this big country. Mostly this effort has resulted in nominating for the title cases that in some way involve issues of “climate change” or, in other words, the idea that if we only sue the right bad guy for enough money we can improve the weather. I mean, that’s pretty hard to top in the stupid category. For some examples in this line, see here and here.

A problem with these types of cases is that, as stupid as they are, they tend to kick around the courts for years without much happening. Often, the courts just don’t know what to do with them. Should they dismiss a case right at the outset without ever giving the plaintiff his or her “day in court”? When that happens there generally is an appeal, and often a remand, not because there is necessarily any merit to the case, but only because the courts hesitate to cut a plaintiff off so short. Or alternatively, should a court allow a lengthy period of “discovery,” where the plaintiffs get to requisition vast quantities of documents and rummage through them looking for something embarrassing to the defendant? Such discovery can go on for years, during which the case sinks out of public view.

So it’s actually highly unusual when one of these litigations that I have put in the “stupidest” category proceeds to a full trial on the merits, complete with live witnesses testifying for weeks on end in a courtroom in front of a judge. However, that just happened in a case that I covered in an October 22 post titled “A Serious Contender For Stupidest Litigation In The Country Goes To Trial.” The occasion for that post was the opening statements in the trial, which I had attended that day in the New York State Supreme Court for New York County. (“New York County” is fancy lawyer talk for Manhattan.) Today, the judge in the case, Barry Ostrager, rendered his decision.

To be fair, this particular case was only very peripherally about trying to use the litigation process to change the weather, although that didn’t make this one any less stupid. This was the case brought by the New York Attorney General against Exxon, claiming that “Exxon knew” about the risks of climate change and its own role in same, and hid those risks from the public. That certainly sounds nefarious. Here is a picture of demonstrators outside the courthouse on the day of the opening statements: