Title: When the Heat Kills: The Legal Challenge of Linking Individual Deaths to Climate Change Hazards
In a groundbreaking legal development, a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Misti Leon against seven major oil and gas companies could reshape the way the legal system approaches climate change liability—particularly in cases where the cause of death, like extreme heat, is not easily attributable to a single action or entity. This case is the first of its kind to link an individual’s death directly to the effects of man-made climate change, raising profound legal implications for future tort litigation in environmental law.
At the heart of the lawsuit is the tragic death of Juliana Leon, a 65-year-old poet from Washington state who died of hyperthermia during the historic 2021 heat dome in the Pacific Northwest. Her body temperature was recorded at 110°F. The complaint alleges that the excessive heat, deemed “virtually impossible” without anthropogenic climate change, was a foreseeable consequence of decades of fossil fuel combustion, disinformation, and public deception orchestrated by the defendants: Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, and Olympic Pipeline Company.