Does a trio of new lawsuits aimed at forcing the world’s largest oil companies to pay for the projected effects of rising seas along California’s coast have a fighting chance?

The litigation is perhaps the boldest attempt so far to test a broad legal strategy — holding corporate America accountable for cashing in on products that have hurt large swaths of the public — on issues pertaining to climate change.

“We’re in uncharted territory here pretty fundamentally,” said Sean Hecht, co-executive director of the UCLA law school’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. “The theory behind it is an interesting one: that essentially, petroleum products should be considered defective when used as directed because of the harms that they cause.”

The three lawsuits, which were filed Monday by the city of Imperial Beach and San Mateo and Marin counties, will likely face significant legal obstacles, according to both critics and legal scholars sympathetic to the municipalities’ cause. And similar efforts to go after large industries for alleged damage to the public, including cases against makers of lead paint and tobacco products, have seen mixed results in the courts.

----------Maybe if they include all 250 million drivers, car dealers, chop shops, NASCAR to name a few..............