Did Massachusetts AG Just File a Tort Lawyer's Slide Show as a Lawsuit? - Climate Litigation Watch

Did Massachusetts AG Just File a Tort Lawyer’s Slide Show as a Lawsuit?

These past two weeks CLW has documented how, just weeks her office took in a slide show presentation titled “What Exxon Knew” from a plaintiffs’ attorney touring OAGs looking for “a single sympathetic attorney general” to help out his flagging litigation campaign against the energy industry, Massachusetts’ AG Maura Healey announced an investigation into — ta da! — “What Exxon Knew”. That is responsive government.

 

Now, with AG Healey’s filing this week, we see investigations and law enforcement being used beyond advancing desires of tort lawyers and promises made to major party donors but also, it seems, to add some PR support to a colleague’s own “case most notable for how badly it has fizzled“.

Healey’s suit also happens to hew to the pitch by the author of this gem — an email to her employer’s financial benefactor — presented at the “secret meeting at Harvard” to which Healey dispatched not one or three but five prosecutors, joining prospective funders (um, of what?, some curious reporter, defense counsel or US Attorney might ask).

CLW is still waiting on the media to awaken to the prospect that its quietude on this use of law enforcement is enabling people with whom it doesn’t sympathize to use law enforcement against parties with which it does. That moment, when it comes, should be a doozy. Meanwhile, more on that slide-show-cum-lawsuit next week.