Washington Woman Sues Oil Companies for Mother’s Death in 2021 Heat Wave
Seattle, Washington, USA – May 30, 2025 – In a groundbreaking legal action, Misti Leon filed a wrongful death lawsuit on May 28, 2025, in Washington state court against seven major oil and gas companies—ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, and Olympic Pipeline Company (a BP-managed subsidiary)—claiming their role in climate change contributed to the death of her mother, Juliana Leon, during the 2021 Pacific Northwest heat dome. The lawsuit, reported by The New York Times and NPR, marks the first known attempt to hold fossil fuel companies accountable for an individual’s death due to climate-related extreme weather.
Case Details
Juliana Leon, 65, died of hyperthermia on June 28, 2021, the hottest day in Seattle’s history, with temperatures reaching 108°F (42.22°C). After driving 100 miles for an appointment, Juliana, whose car lacked functioning air conditioning, pulled over and rolled down her windows, overwhelmed by the heat. Found unresponsive two hours later with an internal body temperature of 110°F, her death was attributed to the extreme heat of the 2021 heat dome, which killed an estimated 1,400 people across Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. A peer-reviewed study by international climate researchers concluded the heat wave was “virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.”
The 81-page complaint alleges that the oil companies knew since the 1950s that their fossil fuel products were altering the Earth’s atmosphere, leading to extreme weather and “foreseeable loss of human life.” It accuses them of hiding, downplaying, and misrepresenting climate risks while obstructing research and funding campaigns to obscure scientific consensus on global warming. Misti Leon claims that this “campaign of deception” delayed climate measures that could have mitigated the heat dome’s severity, potentially saving her mother’s life. She seeks unspecified monetary damages and a court-ordered public education campaign to correct decades of misinformation.
Legal and Scientific Context
The lawsuit builds on a growing wave of climate litigation against fossil fuel companies, with over 86 lawsuits filed globally since the 2015 Paris Agreement, 58% in the U.S. Previous cases, pursued by states like California and cities like Honolulu, have focused on consumer fraud, public nuisance, or cost recovery for climate damages like wildfires and floods. However, Leon’s case is unique for linking an individual’s death directly to climate change, putting a “human face” on the crisis, as noted by Douglas Kysar of Yale Law School. A 2023 Harvard Environmental Law Review paper suggested oil companies could face homicide charges for climate-related deaths, arguing their actions meet criteria for reckless endangerment.
Korey Silverman-Roati of Columbia Law School’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law emphasized that advances in attribution science allow scientists to confidently link specific weather events, like the 2021 heat dome, to human-caused climate change. “Scientists today are a lot more confident in saying that but for climate change, this would not have happened,” he told The New York Times. Richard Wiles of the Center for Climate Integrity added, “Big Oil lied and deliberately accelerated the problem,” highlighting decades of alleged misinformation.
Industry and Legal Responses
Shell, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Phillips 66 declined to comment on the lawsuit, while ExxonMobil did not provide an immediate response. The American Petroleum Institute has repeatedly called such lawsuits “meritless,” arguing that climate change is a policy issue for Congress, not courts. In a related case, a Pennsylvania judge dismissed a similar climate lawsuit by Bucks County, citing the Clean Air Act’s federal jurisdiction over emissions, a stance echoed by oil companies in other dismissed cases in New Jersey and Baltimore. However, the U.S. Supreme Court’s January 2025 decision to allow Honolulu’s climate lawsuit to proceed under state law has bolstered hopes for cases like Leon’s.
Broader Implications
The lawsuit represents a new frontier in climate accountability, following dozens of U.S. and global suits accusing oil companies of deceptive practices. Aaron Regunberg of Public Citizen noted that such cases highlight “foreseeable consequences of specific actions by fossil fuel corporations,” potentially paving the way for criminal charges like homicide. While no climate lawsuit against oil companies has yet gone to trial, the Honolulu case’s progress suggests Leon’s could set a precedent. Critics of the industry, like @MorePerfectUS on X, argue that fossil fuel companies’ long-standing knowledge of climate risks—dating back over 50 years—constitutes a “corporate crime” warranting accountability.
Conversely, oil companies and their allies, like the American Enterprise Institute, warn that such lawsuits threaten a vital industry and should be addressed through federal policy, not state courts. As legal battles intensify, Leon’s case underscores the human toll of climate change and the growing push to hold fossil fuel companies liable for their role in exacerbating extreme weather events.
