Three California communities are appealing a bankruptcy judge’s recent decision that said Peabody Energy Corp.’s bankruptcy plan protects it from global-warming lawsuits, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The counties of San Mateo and Marin, and the city of Imperial Beach filed an appeal in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in St. Louis on Sunday, roughly a month after Judge Barry Schermer ruled that discharge and injunction provisions included in the coal-mining company’s reorganization plan extinguish the lawsuits. The lawsuits, which were filed in the months after Peabody’s exit from bankruptcy protection in April, look to hold more than three dozen oil, gas and coal companies liable for greenhouse-gas emissions produced over the decades. In the lawsuits, the California communities connect these emissions to global climate change and rising sea levels, which they say has made them more vulnerable to flooding and other dangers. The lawsuits claim that Peabody, for decades, exported substantial amounts of coal from California. Court papers also show the communities believe the company has been linked to groups that sought to undermine climate science and the connection between emissions and global warming and rising sea levels.
