Basically all of the other “ExxonKnew”-style lawsuits needed long dissections on my part — one needing a 2-part blog post to ultimately point out obvious faults with people who promote this law fare — to detail what fell apart within their accusations about what’s implied to be ‘liars-for-hire employed to carry out disinformation campaigns created by fossil fuel companies.’ When I say this ‘technically’ johnny-come-lately San Juan v Exxon lawsuit, filed on December 13, 2023, is easy for me to dissect, I’m not kidding. In fact, in the sheer simplicity of taking apart San Juan v Exxon only underscores the massive problem with the other lawsuit that needed two blog posts to reveal all its faults. So, the question needing to be answered about San Juan is: why it was filed at all?
The dead giveaway pointing toward the fatal faults of San Juan is inadvertently seen in the ClimateCaseChart site’s entry for it: The complaint, which was similar to the complaint filed by multiple Puerto Rico municipalities in 2022 …
No. Not similar to — identical.
For the faults I show in the following screencapture images, simply go to my 2-part Dec 23, 2022 / Jan 3, 2023 dissection of Puerto Rico.
✓ Ye olde reposition global warming memos: San Juan vs Puerto Rico
✓ The “E. Erie” misread name: San Juan vs Puerto Rico – it’s actually “Bill Brier” and the other is “DeMichele” with an “i”.
✓ ‘Advertorials’ attributed (falsely, in 3 of the 5 references) to the Western Fuels Association “ICE”-acronym public relations campaign: San Juan vs Puerto Rico – San Juan strangely omits “The following images” paragraph seen immediately above the ads in Puerto Rico.
✓ Ye olde “victory will be achieved” memo set: San Juan vs Puerto Rico – San Juan simply scrunched the Milberg Coleman law firm’s retyping efforts of those otherwise murky lousy Greenpeace-sourced memos to fit onto the same page with the paragraph describing them.
✓ Richard Lawson memo: San Juan vs Puerto Rico – here, the law firm handling San Juan clumsily omits the paragraph number following the Lawson memo paragraph, inadvertently implying by default that the next paragraph is a continuation of the point about Lawson when it actually has nothing to do with Lawson.
✓ “Bankroll scientists” – right down to the oddball “LegiStorm” link about Dr Willie Soon: San Juan vs Puerto Rico
Readers probably get the point by now, but one more especially egregious one to hammer it home:
✓ Accusation of the late Dr S Fred Singer being a participant in the ICE PR campaign when he had nothing to do with it: San Juan vs Puerto Rico – just like in Puerto Rico, the footnote citation for the accusation about Dr Singer goes to a New York Times article that never mentions Dr Singer’s name.
The false accusations against Dr Singer and Dr Soon alone should get Puerto Rico thrown out of court, and by default, also this San Juan lawsuit ….. and, oh yeah …. also the Oregon County of Multnomah v Exxon case, since it also has every appearance of plagiarizing accusation sections – plural! – out of Puerto Rico.
The filing of San Juan, by a law firm that doesn’t appear to mention having any involvement or expertise in climate issue litigation, makes no sense whatsoever. Puerto Rico already covered the city of San Juan.
Thus, the simple question: what is actually going on here with this case? Is this an example of a renegade law firm trying to shoehorn its way into potential giant fossil fuel industry litigation settlement cash, oblivious to how the effort may be a gift on a silver platter to basically all of the “ExxonKnew” lawsuit defendant companies, from Delaware to Honolulu, and from the Caribbean to the Pacific Northwest Rainforests, when it refocuses attention on how vulnerable Puerto Rico is to total collapse?