On September 29, 2026, Weil secured dismissal for ExxonMobil of a putative nationwide class action alleging that petrochemical producers misled the public about the recyclability of plastic, after a Kansas federal judge held that the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing to sue.

The lawsuit was brought by eight individual consumers and the Board of County Commissioners of Ford County, Kansas, against nine chemical producers and the American Chemistry Council. Plaintiffs’ Amended Complaint asserted 46 counts under federal and state antitrust, consumer protection, public nuisance, and unjust enrichment law, and sought to represent a nationwide class of consumers, as well as a nationwide class of counties and municipalities. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants’ purported recycling messaging caused consumers to buy more plastic products, at higher prices, and caused Ford County to incur increased waste disposal costs.

U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse of the District of Kansas granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss on standing grounds, holding that the plaintiffs failed to plead any injury traceable to the defendants’ conduct. The court found that no plaintiff identified a product they purchased, attributed a purchase to any defendant’s statement, or alleged facts showing how the defendants’ conduct affected the prices set by independent manufacturers and retailers. It also held that Ford County’s waste-disposal theory depended on a chain of decisions by regulators, manufacturers, retailers, and the public, none of which was supported by pleaded facts. The court noted that the plaintiffs’ theory “starts from the premise that the public at large was harmed” and reasons that the plaintiffs must have been as well, a mode of reasoning the U.S. Supreme Court has long rejected.

The decision is an important development in the emerging wave of litigation seeking to hold chemical producers responsible for plastics pollution, and it reinforces that plaintiffs must plead specific facts connecting a defendant’s conduct to their own alleged injuries. It follows an earlier, rare appellate victory Weil achieved in the case, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit granted ExxonMobil’s mandamus petition and directed a Missouri federal court to transfer the case back to Kansas, where the plaintiffs had originally filed and then dismissed their complaint, foreclosing an attempt to select a more favorable forum.

The Weil team is led by global Litigation Department Co-Chair David Lender and included Complex Commercial Litigation Co-Head David Singh and partners Morgan MacBride and Adam Hemlock, and associates Elaina Aquila, Isabelle Sehati, and Rebecca Jacobson. Appeals and Strategic Counseling Co-Head Zack Tripp helped lead on the Eighth Circuit mandamus petition.