The state of New York may have suffered an emphatic defeat in a legal battle against ExxonMobil last week, but that has not deterred the city of Imperial Beach from pursuing its own lawsuit looking to force 18 energy companies in the oil and coal sectors to pay for damages associated with rising sea levels.

“We’re going full-speed ahead,” Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina said Monday. “The reality is the fossil fuel industry has caused climate change and they need to pay for it.”

On Dec. 10, a New York Supreme Court Justice ruled the state’s attorney general “offered no testimony from any investor who claims to have been misled” by ExxonMobil in a lawsuit that claimed the oil giant deceived investors about the impacts of climate change.

Justice Barry Ostrager’s 55-page ruling not only rejected the state’s claim the company committed fraud but said there “was not a single ExxonMobil employee whose testimony the Court found to be anything other than truthful” while the testimony of the state’s expert witnesses was “eviscerated on cross-examination and by ExxonMobil’s expert witnesses.”

The case was dismissed “with prejudice,” which means it cannot be reintroduced in New York.

The full article can be read here.