Bowoto V. Chevron Corp. - Legal Claims

Legal Claims

With the assistance of several nonprofit organizations including the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Public Interest Lawyers Group, and EarthRights International, a group of victims and the relatives of some of those killed in the attacks filed suit against ChevronTexaco Corporation in 1999. The complaint alleged that “he military, at the request of, and with the participation and complicity of Chevron, killed and injured people, destroyed churches, religious shrines and water wells; burned down homes, killed livestock; and destroyed canoes and fishing equipment belonging to villagers.” The plaintiffs raised several federal claims under the Alien Tort Claims Act, the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). They also alleged California state law claims of wrongful death, assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence per se, among others.
The first major ruling in the case came in 2004 when the district court denied Chevron’s motion for summary judgment. The court held that the plaintiffs had supplied sufficient evidence that ChevronTexaco could be found responsible for the actions of its subsidiary. Therefore, the case could go forward to trial to determine if plaintiffs may pierce the corporate veil.

It was not until June 2005 that the plaintiffs and the court learned that ChevronTexaco failed to disclose that Chevron USA, Inc. rather than Chevron Overseas Petroleum Inc. controlled the subsidiary in Nigeria. This is significant because the plaintiffs were suing the wrong defendant. Presiding U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston chided Chevron’s attorneys for keeping silent, and intimated that they may have done so on purpose to delay or otherwise obstruct the plaintiffs' claims.

In a series of decisions in August 2006, Judge Illston handed down some dramatic decisions in the case. First and foremost, she allowed the plaintiffs to make Chevron USA a defendant. She also granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the claims under the Torture Victim Protection Act and the Alien Tort Claims Act. However, the court allowed the international law claim of crimes against humanity to go forward temporarily. On August 13, 2007, however, Judge Illston dismissed the claim of crimes against humanity.

Most recently, in March 2007, the court granted Chevron’s motion for summary judgment on the plaintiffs’ RICO claim. To win a RICO claim, the plaintiffs needed to show (1) conduct, (2) of an enterprise, (3) through a pattern, (4) of racketeering activity. The court found that the plaintiffs did not satisfy the first element; although they provided evidence that a significant amount of the oil extracted in Nigeria was exported to the United States, the plaintiffs did not provide enough evidence that the two incidents underlying this litigation or Chevron’s treatment of the local communities had any impact on the U.S. economy.

On December 1, 2008, the jury delivered a complete defense verdict for Chevron. On September 10, 2010 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury verdict in favor of Chevron Corporation.