Large oil companies won a legal reprieve when a Maryland state judge on July 10 dismissed a Baltimore lawsuit over flooding and other climate change impacts.

The case had bounced around the court system for six years. In 2021, the US Supreme Court remanded the city's lawsuit to a US appeals court that, in turn, sent the case back to the state court.

A judge for the Circuit Court for Baltimore City ruled that while "the world's overuse and misuse of fossil fuels" and the warming climate is wreaking havoc on the environment, the city cannot seek damages under state law for a global emissions problem.

Citing similar cases in New York and Honolulu, the City of Baltimore "requests damages for the cumulative impact of conduct occurring simultaneously across just about every jurisdiction on the planet," Circuit Court Judge Videtta Brown wrote. "The instant case goes beyond the limits of Maryland state law."

The City of Baltimore said it would appeal the ruling.

The oil giants named in the city's lawsuit, including BP PLC, Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp., as well as their main trade group the American Petroleum Institute, have long argued that climate change should be a matter for Congress rather than a patchwork of courts spanning jurisdictions and states.

The oil companies are fighting dozens of lawsuits over climate-related extreme heat, as well as allegations that their operations and emissions violate citizens' constitutional rights and that they used deceptive practices to market their products. Another Maryland case recently moved toward trial.

Historically, the companies have sought to keep climate lawsuits out of state courts deemed to be more amenable to local and state complaints, although that was not the case with Baltimore.

"This decision is at odds with how other courts have ruled in similar cases, including a Maryland state court that allowed climate deception lawsuits that Annapolis and Anne Arundel County separately brought against fossil fuel companies to proceed toward trial," Alyssa Johl, vice president of legal and general counsel for the Center for Climate Integrity, said in a statement. "Judges across the country have agreed that cases like Baltimore's are intended to hold bad actors accountable for fraud and deception; they in no way seek to regulate emissions." City of Baltimore v. BP (Case No.: 24-C-18-004219)