A judge has ruled Peabody Energy Corp. is protected by its recent bankruptcy from global-warming lawsuits brought by California coastal communities against fossil-fuel companies, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Judge Barry Schermer of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ruled on Tuesday that discharge and injunction provisions included in Peabody’s chapter 11 plan of reorganization extinguish the lawsuits that were filed months after the coal-mining company left bankruptcy in early April. The litigation was brought by the counties of San Mateo and Marin and the city of Imperial Beach and seeks damages tied to greenhouse-gas emissions between 1965 and 2015. Peabody sought bankruptcy in 2016. The ruling doesn’t affect other companies that are named in the lawsuits, filed in July. The lawsuits say that Peabody for decades has exported substantial amounts of coal from California and claim the company has been linked to groups that have sought to undermine climate science and the connection between emissions and global warming and rising sea levels. Peabody has said the lawsuits lack merit. Judge Schermer said that the California communities were required to bring claims against Peabody during the bankruptcy but, instead, chose not to participate in the chapter 11. Initiating the lawsuits after Peabody left chapter 11 was intended to give these communities an advantage over other company creditors who went through the bankruptcy process, the judge said.
