Lawyer Melissa "Missy" Sims has spent decades taking on oil and gas giants in courts, and she and a team of lawyers tried to hold Exxon and other powerful dirty fuel companies accountable for devastating extreme weather events.

According to Yale Climate Connections, the lawsuit, filed in 2022, sought justice for the widespread and severe impacts of Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017, which tore through Puerto Rico and resulted in a humanitarian crisis. 

Millions of people were left without access to basic needs like electricity, food, water, housing, and communications. 

According to the Mercy Corps, the storms caused around $90 billion in damages, decimated the agricultural sector, and forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave the island. 

The recovery has been lengthy and difficult, with significant challenges to infrastructure, economic stability, and access to essential services still persisting. 

But Missy and her team hoped to speed up the process. 

They represented more than three dozen municipalities in Puerto Rico that alleged that the dirty fuel industry has caused roughly 40% of global planet-warming gas pollution between 1965 and 2017 and conspired to hide the deadly impacts of their activities from the public. Rising global temperatures exacerbate extreme weather events, like hurricanes.

They also claimed that the warming caused by burning oil and gas contributed to the estimated 3,000 deaths caused by Maria — which is one of the highest death tolls from a hurricane in history. 

While Sims has challenged Exxon in court before, in a 2006 case regarding toxic pollution from a former zinc smelting plant, this time she applied the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act — originally used to target organized crime — in climate litigation. 

"It has been used in civil contexts where victims suffer economic harm as a result of coordinated fraud," Sims told Yale Climate Connections. 

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"In the context of climate litigation, we can show that fossil fuel companies targeted coastal communities – knowing those areas would be disproportionately affected by rising sea levels, more intense hurricanes, and flooding," she added.

While some companies believe that having a case tried in their home state would give them an advantage in the courtroom, Sims said that isn't necessarily true, citing a 2025 landmark case against Chevron filed in Louisiana. 

The jury ordered the company to pay over $744 million to restore coastal wetlands in Plaquemines parish, where Chevron operates.

"This outcome illustrates that even in jurisdictions where companies have deep roots, juries are increasingly willing to hold them accountable for large-scale environmental damage," she said.

The case against Exxon was dismissed by a federal judge in September. They ruled the case should not proceed to avoid setting a problematic legal precedent in response to emotionally charged cases. 

"The plaintiffs are expected to appeal the decision to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals," according to illuminem. 

While the dismissal can be seen as a setback for climate-related litigation and may discourage similar lawsuits in federal court, the good news is that climate lawsuits are on the rise worldwide, according to the United Nations, signaling that the public is demanding change.

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