This story was originally published by Inside Climate News and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Justice Samuel Alito decided Monday to sit out one of the most consequential climate change cases to reach the Supreme Court, but legal experts expected continuing ramifications due to his ownership of individual corporate stocks, including in the fossil fuel industry.

After months of resisting calls for his recusal, Alito reversed himself one week before the Supreme Court is set to open its term by hearing the oil industry’s bid to block Boulder, Colorado’s lawsuit to recover costs related to climate change. The clerk of the court sent a brief letter to the lawyers in the case saying, without explanation, that Alito would no longer participate.

Alito does not own stock in the two companies involved in the Boulder case—ExxonMobil and the Canadian oil giant Suncor—and through a court spokesperson earlier this year conveyed that the court’s legal counsel said his recusal was not required. But Alito does own stock in companies that face lawsuits that will hinge directly on the Supreme Court’s decision.

State court judges, in fact, have stayed 11 such cases in recent months pending the outcome of Suncor v. Boulder. Those include cases from which Alito has recused himself in the past.

The cases seek to recover damages from oil companies for the costs state and local governments already are incurring and are expected to face in the future due to extreme weather, drought, wildfire and other impacts of climate change.

The oil industry should bear financial responsibility, they argue, because of evidence that they knew the climate impact of their products for years and misled the public about the risks. The county and city of Boulder sued Exxon and Suncor in 2018, five years after historic flooding destroyed 1,800 homes, tore up more than 100 miles of roadway and caused billions of dollars of damage.

Three years later, the most destructive fire in Colorado history swept across the region, killing two people, burning 6,000 acres and again burdening communities with costs from an event that scientists say was worsened by climate change.

“The public should not have to wonder whether a justice’s personal investments could benefit from a ruling.”

A Supreme Court ruling for the oil companies could provide the kind of blanket immunity from liability over climate change that the industry has sought for years. Exxon and........

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