WASHINGTON, D.C. – April 25, 2014 – (RealEstateRama) — Common law litigation seeking relief from petrochemical companies for causing climate change has been much touted but little successful.
The insurance industry has been warning of huge coming losses due to climate change, but has not taken aggressive action to force change.
Until now?
In a lawsuit filed in Illinois state court on April 16, 2014, some property insurers sued the City of Chicago and a host of regional and municipal water managers for failure to provide adequate stormwater storage. The class action suit alleges that the plaintiffs’ insureds would not have suffered so much flood damage from a 2013 storm had the defendants exercised better planning and construction to deal with foreseeable storms.
Notably, the plaintiff insurers rely heavily on the 2008 Chicago Climate Action Plan. The plan recognized that climate change would cause increased amounts, durations and intensities of rainfall. Plaintiffs allege that despite the foreseen problem and having had adequate time and opportunity, the defendants failed to make the recommended and necessary improvements, leading to the injuries to the insureds’ properties.
Certainly this suit faces many challenges. Courts are slow to override state and local governments’ complicated budgeting choices. Moreover, courts may be ill-equipped to oversee projects such as Chicago’s Deep Tunnel Project, which was commissioned in the 1970s to address metropolitan flooding, stormwater and sewage. After more than $3 billion so far, itwill not be completed until at least 2029.
Also, query whether such litigation will help or hurt state and local efforts to adapt to climate change. It could deter honest forecasting of what it will take.
Still, this lawsuit could augur a new wave of common law climate change litigation – a category involving well-funded plaintiffs with provable arguments for proximate cause of real damages.
