Law of the Jungle by Paul M. Barrett

Author:Paul M. Barrett [Barrett, Paul M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7704-3635-3
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2014-09-23T04:00:00+00:00

The Bonifaz suit in San Francisco flamed out in far more spectacular fashion. Chevron sent lawyers to the Oriente to question Bonifaz’s supposed clients. In sworn depositions, the plaintiffs confessed that they had not suffered the various ailments Bonifaz attributed to them. A woman named Gloria Chamba, for example, supposedly had experienced emotional distress over her son’s contracting leukemia as a result of exposure to petroleum. Under oath, she was asked about a sentence in the complaint stating that she “provides care to her son as he slowly deteriorates from his cancer.” That, a Chevron attorney inquired, “is false, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Chamba said.

“Did you ever authorize your lawyers to sue [Chevron], claiming that your son has leukemia?”

“No.”

Chamba’s son “does not have and has never had leukemia,” concluded U.S. District Judge William Alsup. Similarly, plaintiff Luisa Gonzales “alleged that she had breast cancer when she knew that she did not,” the judge said. Dismissal of injury claims before a trial was a “severe sanction,” Alsup acknowledged in an August 2007 ruling, but one that was justified in this case because the plaintiffs had “engaged deliberately in deceptive practices that undermine the integrity of judicial proceedings.” Moreover, the judge added, “This is not the first evidence of possible misconduct by plaintiffs’ counsel in this case. It is clear to the court that this case was manufactured by plaintiffs’ counsel for reasons other than to seek a recovery on these plaintiffs’ behalf. This litigation is likely a smaller piece of some larger scheme against [Chevron].” Three months later, in another harsh opinion, Alsup shut down the entire fiasco, reiterating that Bonifaz and his co-counsel had brought suit in California “for reasons that have more to do with internecine quarrels among [Chevron’s] antagonists than the interests of their plaintiffs.”

Chevron wasted no time in trying to use the Bonifaz debacle to undermine Aguinda II itself. The San Francisco suit, the company said in a court filing, was part of “a long-standing and ongoing unlawful effort by Bonifaz and other lawyers and entities to extort money from Chevron by blaming it for harms that are as nonexistent as the false cancer claims” disowned by Chamba and Gonzales. Whatever pollution existed in Ecuador, the company added, was “the sole responsibility of the Ecuadorian government and its state-owned oil company, Petroecuador.”

Donziger’s clients scrambled to distance themselves from Bonifaz. They issued a scathing press release asserting that Bonifaz had been fired from the case in Ecuador for “ethically questionable” conduct. “Bonifaz purports to fight for human rights,” they said, “but as one can see from the federal court’s decision, he regularly forgets to respect the human rights of his own clients in the Amazon rain forest.” The release criticized Chevron “for trying to use the sanctions against Bonifaz in the San Francisco case as a vehicle to discredit” the case in Ecuador.

The self-immolation of Bonifaz was a cause for celebration at Chevron. In speeches and interviews, Charles James vowed that the company would redouble its effort to crush the Lago Agrio case, as well.

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