Fines for lawyers suing Chevron

Fines for lawyers suing Chevron

	Published : Wed, 17 Oct 2007 23:20 By : Agencies Print this Story

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A federal judge has sharply rebuked lawyers suing Chevron Corp. for allegedly causing cancer after polluting areas of Ecuador and ordered the lead attorney to pay a $45,000 fine after wrongly claiming that some of the purported victims were sick.

The judge also found that the three purported victims didn't even know that the lawyers were filing a federal lawsuit here in their names.

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup ordered lawyer Cristobal Bonifaz to pay $45,000 to Chevron by the end of the year for not properly investigating whether his clients really had cancer. Alsup said if Bonifaz fails to pay, then two other attorneys on the case -- Paul Hoffman and Terry Collingsworth -- will be required to foot the bill.

The judge chastised the lawyers for failing to investigate the claims of their clients before suing Chevron on their behalf. In court papers, the lawyers said the names were given to them by an Ecuador paralegal who said she had documented that the clients had cancer.

'Counsel were obligated to investigate first and sue second, not the other way around,' Alsup wrote in his ruling.

Alsup earlier this year removed the three clients from the case after it became clear they didn't have any legitimate claims.

'We definitely think that the claims brought in this case are reflective of the kind and quality of the other allegations that have been brought to bear in the litigation,' Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson said.

The three were part of a group of seven Ecuadoreans who sued Chevron for personal injury last year, claiming that chemical dumping by Texaco Petroleum Co. before it was acquired by San Ramon-based Chevron had contaminated the rainforest region where they lived.

Bonifaz, an Ecuador native licensed to practice law in Massachusetts, didn't return a telephone call to his Amherst, Mass., office. Hoffman and Collingsworth said an appeal of the Tuesday order is being considered.

'It is extremely unfortunate that the focus has shifted to counsel for plaintiffs,' Collingsworth said in an e-mail. 'The focus should be that we are going to trial on Jan. 21, 2008 to prove our assertions regarding Chevron's extreme and outrageous conduct.'