This is the house that Jack built. This is the hurricane that blew down the house that Jack built. These are the plaintiffs who sued the companies that emitted the gases that caused the climate change that created the conditions that spawned the hurricane that blew down the house that Jack built.

And the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals says that’s a good enough story to let a case brought by Mississippi property owners against oil and coal companies go forward, according to a recent post in the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog.

The conservative court reviewed Comer v. Murphy Oil USA to determine if the plaintiffs “injuries were ‘fairly traceable’ to the defendant’s actions,” according to the post. Despite the Mother Goose-style chain of causation, the appeals court said that public and private nuisance, trespass, and negligence claims must be considered. Claims of unjust enrichment, fraudulent misrepresentation, and civil conspiracy were dismissed.

Although the ruling means little more than a court date for filers of the suit, it could have a greater impact on climate change litigation overall, according to one mass tort expert.

“With this decision, you are now pretty well assured of seeing others file these kinds of claims, ” J. Russell Jackson told the Wall Street Journal.

In his own blog posting on the topic, though, Jackson indicated that such cases remain difficult to bring and win.

“It seems clear that the Comer decision will provide some encouragement to plaintiffs' lawyers who dream of scoring a lucrative victory in climate change litigation,” he wrote. “But when one examines the opinion closely, it is clear that such cases still are plagued with significant causation problems that will present early and frequent opportunities for defendants to move for dismissal or summary judgment.”