By Paul B. Simon, Partner, Burke Law Group
On June 2, 2026, the Ninth Circuit shut down the latest frivolous climate lawsuit of activist group Our Children’s Trust (“OCT”), when it unanimously affirmed the dismissal of OCT’s complaint in Lighthiser v. Trump, No. 25-6714, in an unpublished memorandum opinion.
The Burke Law Group proudly stood up for the energy industry and the administration’s energy abundance goals in this pivotal constitutional battle. Partners Ilya Shapiro, Paul B. Simon, and Marcella Burke, with associate Connor Mighell, filed an amicus brief opposing OCT’s procedural overreach and its efforts to use climate change litigation to hijack national energy policy – positions that were echoed throughout the panel’s decision.
Background: Suit and Lower Court Ruling
The suit targeted three executive orders aiming, inter alia, to unleash domestic energy production and expedite infrastructure permitting. Plaintiffs alleged that increased emissions as a result would worsen and expedite the harms from climate change, injuring them and their property in violation of their Fifth Amendment substantive due process rights. It sought a judgment enjoining the orders and unwinding their implementation by agencies up to this date.
While the Montana district court ultimately dismissed the suit on the standing ground of redressability, it only did so after a one-sided evidentiary hearing. The district court allowed the plaintiffs to present ten witnesses – five fact witnesses and five experts – without prior depositions, discovery, or the expert gatekeeping safeguards required by Federal Rule of Evidence 702 – essentially allowing the plaintiffs to present a one-sided version of their case on the merits, untested and without opposition. It then issued a 30+ page ruling adopting their assertions as factual findings – an unnecessary and improper advisory opinion on the merits, creating the false impression that the plaintiffs’ assertions about climate change had been adjudicated on the merits, when they hadn’t. The court even concluded it would welcome the case back to rule on the merits if its dismissal were reversed. This unnecessarily creates the impression of judicial bias and undermines the public trust in judicial neutrality, while allowing the courts to be used as a public relations platform for activists.
The Ninth Circuit’s Correction
Reviewing de novo, the panel affirmed on fundamental Article III grounds—while pointedly refusing to adopt the trial court’s factual story. It held the plaintiffs had not plausibly alleged injuries “caused by the challenged” orders, discarding the very causal link the district court had credited and relied on heavily in its ruling. It also held the relief failed redressability, as enjoining and unwinding the orders would require putting “one federal district court in charge of executive branch energy policy” with no judicially manageable standards and circumventing the review procedures required by the Administrative Procedure Act and Clean Air Act.
Takeaway: Victory for Industry, the Constitution, and the Rule of Law
Lighthiser confirms and extends the applicability of the redressability and separation-of-powers principles established by the Ninth Circuit in Juliana v. United States, 947 F.3d 1159 (9th Cir. 2020), which dismissed a previous and similarly frivolous climate case filed by OCT. The OCT’s bid to repackage their demand that activists dictate national energy policy as a “traditional prohibitory injunction” neither fooled the court nor changed the outcome. Instead, it confirmed and extended Ninth Circuit precedent that these frivolous suits be dismissed efficiently at the pleading stage.
The win was not perfect, and the battle against activists’ abuse of the judicial system continues. As the panel only implicitly rejected the trial court’s factual overreach rather than explicitly vacating the trial court’s ruling, advocacy groups are spinning the defeat as “purely procedural” and (falsely) claiming the district court’s ruling was a substantive decision on the merits that remains undisturbed. That spin is nonsense but also the predictable result of declining to vacate or explicitly call out an improper advisory opinion.
It also is a demonstration to industry and defenders of these important legal and constitutional principles of the need to show up in these cases, at every stage, and oppose activists’ impropriety with aggressive and sophisticated advocacy. Burke Law Group PLLC intends to do exactly that.