A unanimous five-judge panel of the Montana Supreme Court has rejected a request by youth plaintiffs who successfully argued that the state has a constitutional obligation to protect the climate to assume control over legal challenges to several of the laws passed by the 2025 Legislature.

The order, issued Tuesday, said that the Held v. Montana litigants had not been able to show that the Treasure State’s highest court needed to assume jurisdiction, nor had they established why a district court setting couldn’t address their concerns.

The Held group of plaintiffs successfully led a first-of-its-kind lawsuit that said that the Montana Constitutional guarantee of a “clean and healthful environment” obligated the state to adopt more protections for the climate and human health. That trial took place in a Lewis and Clark County District courtroom and the decision was later affirmed by the Montana Supreme Court.

Since then, the Legislature has modified some of the state’s environmental laws. However,  the Republican-led state House and Senate said that while the state must disclose “greenhouse gas” emissions for many projects, that data cannot be used to halt progress in mining or natural resources, an action the Held plaintiffs disagree with.

Other cases, including on the federal level, have had much less success because the environmental protection has so far been derived from the state’s Constitution, not necessarily federal law.

The Held litigants are more than a dozen people, including minors, who argued that the Montana Supreme Court should take up the matter because of the urgency of environmental degradation and because the lawsuit had implications statewide. They petitioned for a “writ of supervisory control,” which is an extraordinary measure used sparingly by the Supreme Court to assume control of cases that would normally be heard in district court.

The five-member panel said that the Held plaintiffs did not establish that the issues were so urgent that they could not be addressed by a district court. In fact, the court cited several examples of timely matters heard by lower level courts, and cases where the Supreme Court had declined to take cases.

“(The Held litigants) brought their petition seven months after the law took effect,” the Supreme Court opinion said.

They had used a finding from the original Held case, which said that every ton of greenhouse gases exacerbates their injuries as the basis of their appeal to the Supreme Court. However, the court rejected that argument.

“Although petitioners argue that the development of the factual record is unnecessary given the factual record in Held, they do not address why the district court would not be equipped to consider the legal issues in a timely fashion and permit them to present an appeal in the ordinary course,” the opinion said. “In fact, district courts entertain constitutional challenges routinely and have the tools to address allegations of irreparable harm or similar questions of urgency.”

Five justices signed off on the order, Chief Justice Cory Swanson, Justices Beth Baker, James Jeremiah Shea, Katharine Bidegaray, and Ingrid Gustafson.