THE town of Carrboro, North Carolina, is suing utility giant Duke Energy for damages suffered by the town from tropical storms, and the case will face a significant inflection point later this month, when a judge in the North Carolina Business Court will rule whether or not it will go to a jury trial. Carrboro is claiming that Duke Energy is liable for storm-induced damage because it was allegedly involved in a decades-long campaign of deception to dismiss the connection between fossil fuels and climate change. There has been a growing number of climate-related lawsuits in recent years, although they are still relatively rare. That means virtually every case is precedent-setting, whether it succeeds or not, and the Duke Energy case is no exception.
