Some of the world's largest energy companies received a double whammy of bad news from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a series of cases brought by California communities attempting to hold the companies liable for the costs associated with coping with climate change and rising sea levels.

The oil companies were on the wrong side of two published decisions written by Circuit Judge Sandra Ikuta, one of the court's most conservative judges. In one, the court refused to overturn a ruling from U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California siding with plaintiffs motion to remand claims brought by plaintiffs including the County of San Mateo to state court. In the other, the court reversed decisions from Chhabria's Northern District colleague U.S. District Judge William Alsup finding there was federal jurisdiction in lawsuits brought by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco and dismissing them.

"We're pleased that we can proceed with this case to protect our residents, workers, and businesses from the costs and damage these fossil fuel companies knowingly imposed on our communities," San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera said in an email statement.

In the Oakland and San Francisco cases, Alsup denied a remand request in cases finding that though the cities had brought their claims under California state common low, their public nuisance claim was governed by federal common law. Alsup later dismissed their cases outright in June 2018 holding that climate change "deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case."

On Tuesday, Ikuta, who was joined in both opinions by Ninth Circuit Judges Morgan Christen and Kenneth Lee, held that Alsup had erred on the jurisdictional question and that, since he had decided the case on the pleadings after just eight months, "considerations of finality, efficiency, and economy" were not "overwhelming."

"The question whether the Energy Companies can be held liable for public nuisance based on production and promotion of the use of fossil fuels and be required to spend billions of dollars on abatement is no doubt an important policy question, but it does not raise a substantial question of federal law for the purpose of determining whether there is jurisdiction under § 1331," Ikuta wrote. The decision remands the cases to Alsup to determine if there's an alternative basis for jurisdiction and, if not, directions to remand the cases to state court.

In the other appeal, the Ninth Circuit held that it largely had no grounds to review Chhabria's decision finding that he didn't have subject matter jurisdiction. The appellate court decided against the companies on the one jurisdiction issue it found was ripe for review—the question of whether the companies were working under the direction of a federal officer in some of their extraction activities. There the court held that the examples put forward by the companies, which included contracts for operations on the Outer Continental Shelf, home to one-third of all domestic oil production, were in line with typical commercial contract provisions and didn't bring the companies under the direction of the federal government.

Theodore Boutrous Jr. of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, who argued both cases of Chevron Corp., forwarded a message to a company spokesman.

"These claims seek to penalize the production of affordable, reliable and ever cleaner energy, which for decades has been authorized and encouraged by law and government policy makers," said Chevron spokesman Sean Comey, adding that the company believes the cases belong in federal court. "They present substantial issues of national law and policy which makes them inappropriate for state law. In whichever forum the cases are ultimately determined, these factually and legally unsupported claims do nothing to sensibly address the significant national economic, legal and policy issues presented by climate change," he said.

Plaintiffs in the San Mateo County case were represented by Michael Sher of Sher Edling at oral argument and in the San Francisco and Oakland case by Michael Rubin of Altshuler Berzon. Rubin forwarded a message to the San Francisco City Attorney's Office.

"We filed this case in state court because that is where it belongs," City Attorney Herrera said in his statement. "We're pleased the federal appellate court has issued this unanimous decision in our favor."