Seattle woman's 2021 heat death blamed on fossil fuel giants in first of its kind lawsuit
According to the complaint filed May 29 by Misti Leon, her mother Juliana 'Julie' Leon died of hyperthermia in her car in Seattle on June 28, 2021, after being overwhelmed by extreme heat.
The lawsuit alleges that oil giants including ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, and ConocoPhillips are liable for Julie's death and accuses them of a decades-long campaign of deception about the risks of burning fossil fuels.
On the day she died, Seattle reached 108°F—its highest recorded temperature.
Julie, who lived in Ferndale, had driven to Seattle for a post-operative appointment following bariatric surgery.
With her car's air conditioning not working, she tried to cool herself by rolling down the windows.
The complaint states she pulled over to a residential street after feeling ill, and was later found unconscious by a passerby.
Despite CPR and emergency treatment, her body temperature reached 110°F, and she died from heat stroke.
The suit claims this unprecedented heat wave, part of what scientists called the 2021 'Heat Dome,' would have been 'virtually impossible' without human-caused climate change—fueled primarily by burning fossil fuels.
The legal complaint argues the fossil fuel companies have known since at least the 1950s that their products were accelerating climate change.
Instead of alerting the public, the lawsuit claims, the companies 'concealed their knowledge,' 'sowed public doubt,' and blocked climate action in order to preserve profits.
It further alleges that the companies funded disinformation campaigns, downplayed risks, and falsely presented themselves as climate-conscious in recent years despite continued large-scale fossil fuel production.
Julie's daughter is seeking damages under Washington's wrongful death and product liability laws, claiming the defendants failed to warn consumers about the foreseeable dangers of their products and caused public harm through false advertising and promotion.
She also claims the companies' actions delayed the shift toward cleaner energy sources and left vulnerable populations—like her mother—unprotected from intensifying climate threats.
The defendants named include:
Exxon Mobil Corporation and ExxonMobil Oil Corporation
BP P.L.C., BP America Inc., and Olympic Pipeline Company
Chevron Corporation and Chevron U.S.A., Inc.
Shell PLC and Shell USA, Inc.
ConocoPhillips, ConocoPhillips Company, Phillips 66, and Phillips 66 Company
The lawsuit marks one of the first known wrongful death claims in Washington directly linking a fatality to climate change and holding fossil fuel companies accountable.
A trial date has not yet been set.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
How US defense companies could benefit from Ukraine talks
US President Trump is set to meet with Ukrainian President Zelensky and other European leaders at the White House on Monday. Former US ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor joins Market Catalysts to discuss how Trump will likely try to secure commitments from European leaders to buy from US defense companies as part of his negotiation asks. To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Catalysts. We obviously know that President Trump is quite transactional in all of these negotiations, whatever, pretty much whatever we're talking about. Um, and I wonder the likelihood that from these European leaders, he will try to secure more concessions in terms of them, perhaps buying US arms to supply to Ukraine, sort of going through them. Um, you know, how does that all fit into this this overall picture? Absolutely right, Julie, and he's basically got that. Um, he has President Trump has agreed, um, that the that we, the United States and defense firms will sell, US defense firms will sell weapons to the Europeans, the the NATO allies in Europe for them to provide to the Ukrainians. Uh, so that and that's a change actually. That's a that's a a policy definition, specification that hadn't we hadn't seen before. So that's a good thing. Europeans are ready to step up. They've committed a lot more money. Uh, there's even more money, Julie, sitting in Russian money that could be seized, um, in in Western banks, uh, that could be used uh, to perk for the Ukrainians to buy weapons from US manufacturing, US defense firms to be able to defend themselves against the Russians. So there's that that is uh, that mechanism you described is in place and and going to move forward. Related Videos Fed Independence, Inflation in Focus at Jackson Hole Israel Calls Up Reservists, Aiming To Raise the Pressure on Hamas Trump Says Fed's Lisa Cook Should Resign Bessent Says China Tariff Status Quo 'Working Pretty Well' Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Blink Charging stock tumbles: CEO talks earnings miss & what's next
Blink Charging (BLNK) reported second quarter results with wider-than-expected losses, sending the stock lower. CEO Mike Battaglia joins Market Catalysts to discuss the earnings print and explain why the company is "actually very happy with the quarter." To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Market Catalysts. Talk us through the quarter a little bit first, and in particular, I'm curious about that net loss coming in larger than expected, even as sales all beat estimates. Yeah, thanks, Julie, for... So first of all, thanks very much for having me. It's great, it's great to be here. So, number one, I want to emphasize that we're actually very happy with the quarter, and that might sound a little strange, given what you just mentioned, but let me explain why. So, during the quarter, we had about $16.5 million in non-cash charges. So, if you were to remove those non-cash charges, we actually did quite well from a year-over-year, uh, OPEX perspective. So removing those non-cash charges, we actually improved our operating expenses by about 24%. Our compensation expense was down 22%. As you indicated right up front, our revenue was $28.7 million, which was actually a 38% sequential increase from Q1. So the only thing I want to emphasize here is that we have a very, very clear plan for the company. We're executing on that plan, and we're going to stick to the plan. Um, just quickly, because I want more details on the plan. Um, those, those charges, those non-cash charges, can you tell me a little bit more about them and whether they are recurring? Yeah, yeah. So those charges are largely one-time, uh, non-recurring, uh, charges. So they were principally concentrated in two areas, uh, one area being an inventory write-down associated with legacy equipment that we've discontinued, uh, where we're investing in new technologies to meet the market. So things like obsolete components, some obsolete chargers in there that did not have a viable, uh, uh, run rate ahead of them from a sales perspective, so we, we took those down. The other piece of it was, uh, several million dollars in uncollectible, uh, receivables. So, look, there's no, uh, surprise or mystery out there that there have been some, some bumps in the road with, uh, the EV industry overall, EV charging. Uh, some customers of ours have had a tough time, and we were not able to collect on those. The good news is that we're making significant progress on working capital improvement, on collections that remain on the books, etc. So those were some of the big ones again, largely, uh, non-recurring. Um, and again, we're, we're, we're in a good position moving into Q3. Okay. So Mike, tell me about the plan for what investors should expect from you guys over the next six months to a year. Yeah. So a couple things. Number one, we have a plan that we created at Blink called Blink Forward. And Blink Forward is a comprehensive initiative. It includes a number of different components, um, but, you know, at the end of the day, there's, there's no secret sauce and there's no mystery to what we have to do. We need to lower our expense base, and we need to grow revenue. And right now, we're doing both of those things. We see, uh, a strong pipeline building, uh, for the second half of the years, we indicated on the conference call on Monday evening. And we have more costs that we've identified that we can take out of the business. So at the end of the day, cash is king, we are intensely focused on preserving liquidity, bringing in the funding that we need to operate this company, turning this company into a profitable and cash flow positive, uh, commercial business. Related Videos How an ADR works: What US investors need to know Palantir extends losses, SoftBank & Intel, a top Oracle exec exits Home Depot Sales Return to Growth HELOC popularity: Meredith Whitney on what's fueling the growth Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Russia Offers ExxonMobil a Path Back to Sakhalin
On August 15, just as the much-anticipated meeting between President Trump and President Putin was taking place, a development of potentially far-reaching consequences but little immediate attention surfaced in Moscow. President Putin signed an alteration to his 2022 decree that had transferred the Sakhalin-1 project fully under Russian jurisdiction, this time supplementing it with conditions for the possible return of foreign companies to the venture. The change carries more weight than the quiet timing suggested. At its core lies Russia's willingness to signal that U.S. companies — and ExxonMobil in particular — could once again have a place in one of Russia's most strategic energy projects. Sakhalin-1 is no ordinary asset. Located on the northeast shelf of Sakhalin Island, it consists of the Chayvo, Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi fields, with recoverable reserves estimated at 2.3 billion barrels of oil and 17.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. ExxonMobil entered the project under a production-sharing agreement in the 1990s, after the fields – first discovered in the 1970s – had been left undeveloped for decades. Commercial production began in 2005, with ExxonMobil as operator. At its launch, the project set a world record in extended-reach drilling, reaching 11,282 meters (37,320 feet) with its Z-11 well back in 2007. The equity structure allocated 30% each to ExxonMobil and Russia's Rosneft, with India's ONGC Videsh and Japan's SODECO each holding 20%.For nearly two decades, this carefully balanced partnership not only demonstrated the viability of large-scale foreign involvement in Russia's upstream sector but also withstood considerable geopolitical turbulence. Even the 2014 Crimea crisis, which unleashed the first wave of Western sanctions against Moscow, failed to derail Sakhalin-1, despite widespread speculation that the project's multinational framework would become unfeasible. Yet what it survived in 2014, it could not withstand in 2022. With the outbreak of war in Ukraine and the far more sweeping sanctions that followed, ExxonMobil announced its withdrawal in March, just weeks after hostilities began, triggering a collapse in production from 220,000 b/d to just 10,000 b/d, grinding to a near halt within months. By April, Exxon booked a $4.6 billion impairment charge tied to Sakhalin-1, underscoring the scale of its retreat. Exports also crashed. Annual shipments of Sakhalin-1 crude fell from 229,000 b/d before the war to 98,000 b/d in 2022, according to Kpler data. For four straight months — June through September — no exports left the terminal. Flows later recovered to 198,000 b/d but still have not reached the pre-war volumes, as sanctions complicated logistics and buyers grew more cautious. Before 2022, the crude had a diverse customer base, including South Korea, Japan, Thailand, China, and even the United States. By 2023, only India and China remained, with a small volume reaching Pakistan in 2024. Today, China has emerged as the largest buyer, taking in 118,000 b/d in 2025 to date. This reshaping of trade flows coincided with a fundamental shift in the project's ownership structure. Putin's first decree on 7 October 2022 formally transferred Exxon's stake into Russian hands, ending its tenure as the project's lead. Exxon had explored the option of selling its 30% stake to Indian partners, but Moscow intervened, seizing the equity and placing it in a new state-backed entity, Sakhalinmorneftegaz-Shelf. India's ONGC and Japan's SODECO opted to remain. Exxon, for its part, viewed the forced transfer as hostile and unfair, but had little recourse. Three years later, Moscow decided to soften its uncompromising stance. The amendment issued on 15 August 2025, reopened the door to foreign participation – but only under strict conditions. Partners may reclaim their shares if they succeed in lifting or mitigating sanctions that constrain the project, securing agreements for the supply of foreign-made equipment and spare parts, establishing new technical cooperation deals, and transferring previously accumulated funds from liquidation accounts into the new operator. In practical terms, Russia is signaling a willingness to reengage with foreign stakeholders, but only on terms that advance its own strategic and operational needs. The timing of the decree, however, suggests that more is at play. Signed on the very day of the Trump–Putin meeting, the amendment reads less like a technical adjustment and more like a political gesture — an overt signal to Washington that Russia is prepared to welcome US partners back into Arctic oil development if the broader climate allows. For President Putin, it amounts to a calculated offering, a card placed on the table to prepare the ground for future negotiations and potential concessions. Yet even if the American side were to reconsider its involvement in Russian Arctic projects, the playing field would look very different from when they first entered. ExxonMobil's original involvement rested on a production-sharing agreement – a ownership regime that raised controversies when first introduced under President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s. These agreements were widely criticized in Russia for granting overly generous terms to foreign investors, depriving the state of substantial revenue and limiting transparency in how contracts were awarded and implemented. By the mid-2000s, only two PSAs remained: Sakhalin-1 and Sakhalin-2. The latter became a case study in Moscow's assertiveness when in 2006, Putin pressured foreign investors to sell a controlling stake to Gazprom. A revived Exxon role today would come under a new legal and commercial regime, one far more tilted in Russia's favor. That said, the significance of such a return could extend well beyond Sakhalin itself. If ExxonMobil were to re-enter this project, it could also signal a pathway back into Russia's broader Arctic ambitions. In 2014, the US sanctions forced Exxon to abandon its joint Arctic exploration with Rosneft after the discovery of the giant Pobeda field in the Kara Sea. With proven reserves of 130 million tonnes of oil and 422 billion cubic meters of gas (and potentially much more), the find rivaled or exceeded resource bases in the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil's and Alaska's continental shelves. At the time, the project's potential was labelled as transformational. A thaw in US-Russia relations that could enable Exxon's possible return to Sakhalin could open the door to reviving such ventures, which remain some of the most promising untapped hydrocarbon prospects in the world. For now, Putin's August decree is a signal, not a deal. But it underscores how tightly the fate of strategic energy projects like Sakhalin-1 is bound to the arc of geopolitics. The legal structures, the buyers, the flows – all have shifted under sanctions and war. What Putin offered on August 15 was not simply a regulatory amendment. It was an invitation, timed to a pivotal political moment, hinting at how energy remains a currency of diplomacy as much as commerce. By Natalia Katona for More Top Reads From this article on
