In America: The Bereaved Daughter Who Intends To Hold The Fossil Fuel Industry Accountable
AP
On June 28, 2021, Seattle sweltered under an unprecedented 108°F, the hottest day in Washington state’s history. Juliana Leon, a 65-year-old Ferndale resident, was returning from a medical appointment when her car’s air conditioning failed. Overwhelmed by the heat, she pulled over, and was later found unconscious. Despite medical efforts, she died of hyperthermia, one of nearly 200 victims of the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome.
Four years later, her daughter, Misti Leon, has filed a groundbreaking wrongful death lawsuit against seven fossil fuel giants: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, and Olympic Pipeline Company, alleging that their emissions fuelled the deadly heatwave.
Filed on May 29, 2025, in King County Superior Court, the lawsuit alleges that the companies have known since the 1950s that fossil fuels contribute to climate change, yet deliberately misled the public to protect their profits. “I never would have in a million years guessed that a heat dome and climate change would be what killed my mother,” Misti Leon told The New York Times. The case, believed to be the first US wrongful death suit linking climate change to an individual’s death, seeks damages and a public education campaign to correct decades of misinformation.
Legal Arguments & Historical Precedents
The complaint outlines three main claims. Wrongful death, failure to warn, and public nuisance. Firstly, Misti Leon argues the companies’ failure to warn and their deceptive conduct caused her mother’s death. The 2021 heatwave was reportedly 150 times more likely to happen due to climate change, a direct result of the fossil fuel companies’ actions.
Secondly, she alleges that the companies are in violation of the Washington Product Liability Act of 1981. This is because they have supposedly failed in their duty to disclose their product’s dangers since the 1960s, choosing instead to fund disinformation campaigns.
Finally, she claims that the companies’ emissions sparked public nuisance by altering the climate of the affected region, in this case Washington, leading to a heat dome that caused her mother’s demise.
These arguments draw on internal documents, such as a 1959 warning by physicist Edward Teller to the American Petroleum Institute about Carbon Dioxide emission risks, and Exxon’s accurate climate projections from the 1970s.
This lawsuit echoes global climate litigation. In Lliuya v. RWE (Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk.) This lawsuit echoes global climate litigation. In Lliuya v. RWE, a Peruvian farmer sued RWE for glacier melt risks, arguing its emissions constituted a nuisance. Though rejected in 2025 for weak causation, the case established that companies could theoretically be liable.
Similarly, in 2024, Belgian farmer Hugues Falys sued Total Energies for crop losses, citing Belgian civil liability laws and seeking both damages and an injunction to halt fossil fuel investments. Unlike these cases, which address future or economic harms, the Leon lawsuit’s focus on a specific death adds a unique emotional and legal dimension.
The primary challenge is proving causation. While attribution science links the 2021 heatwave to climate change, connecting specific corporate emissions to a single event is complex. Previous cases like Lliuya v. RWE stumbled here, but advancing science may strengthen Leon’s case.
Climate Change and Fossil Fuel Dependency
Fossil fuel companies have long profited while receiving massive subsidies—$757 billion in the US in 2022 alone. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported that in 2023, the fossil fuel industry received over $7 trillion in subsidies globally.
These subsidies, including tax breaks and incentives, entrench reliance on fossil fuels, delaying the shift to renewable energy and amplifying climate impacts. Exxon Mobil’’s $36 billion profit in 2022 underscores the industry’s financial strength, yet subsidies persist, fueling emissions that drive extreme weather.
The consequences are stark. The 2021 Pacific Northwest heatwave, which killed nearly 200, was made “virtually impossible” without climate change, per meteorologists. The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, with 30 named storms, saw rainfall rates increase by up to 11% due to warming oceans. The 2020 California wildfires, burning over 4 million acres, were exacerbated by climate-driven heat and drought, contributing to 15,000 particulate matter deaths from 2006-2020.
Corporate Reckoning in the Digital Age
Even if the Leon lawsuit doesn’t succeed, it poses risks to the companies’ reputations. In 2023, General Motors’ Cruise division faced a fatal accident in San Francisco when a self-driving car dragged a pedestrian, leading to public backlash, regulatory scrutiny, and GM’s decision to halt the program. Similarly, the Leon case, amplified by social media, could pressure fossil fuel companies to address their climate impact or face consumer and investor distrust.
Aaron Regunberg, director of Public Citizen, a non-profit organisation called it a “model for victims of climate disasters all across the country.” Legal Scholar Don Braman noted that this will not be an isolated incident, owing to widespread nature of the international climate crisis. He wrote, “It’s hard to imagine this will be an isolated incident... the loss of life from these climate-fueled disasters will likely accelerate.”
Chevron’s lawyer, Theodore Boutros, dismissed it as a “political climate tort litigation,” that was contrary to, “law, science, and common sense.” Most defendants declined to comment, with ExxonMobil stating no comment was immediately available.
Washington’s Suspicious Silence
In an age where the richest man in the world live-tweets, resulting in a real-time response from the US President, Washington politicians are yet to react; this could be due to the recency of the lawsuit’s filings. It could also be due to the $150 million spent in lobbying efforts by the fossil fuel industry on the US Congress. This figure may vary year-on-year, but roughly stays the same. It is important to note that these funds are not handed to the politicians directly. They are donated to PACs and Super-PACs, who in-turn spend money on candidate’s campaigns, accommodation, staffer’s salaries and much more.
Open Secrets, a non-partisan data aggregator reports that Republicans took over 5 times as much money from the fossil fuel industry in 2023 and 2024. 189 House Democrats on average received just over $17,000. Meanwhile, 217 of their Republican counterparts on the opposite aisle received just over $72,000. In the Senate, 43 Democrats receive just over $14,000, and 49 Republicans received just over $110,000.