Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 8 -- The US District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed complaints Aug. 3 against Chevron Corp. filed on behalf of three Ecuadorians.
The court said the plaintiffs had fabricated claims that they or their relative had cancer caused by the former operations of Chevron subsidiary Texaco Petroleum Co. in Ecuador.
The three plaintiffs, Gloria Chamba, Luisa Gonzales, and Gonzales's husband Nixon Rodriguez Crespo, were among a group of seven Ecuadorians who brought personal injury claims against the US major.
According to the lawsuits filed against Chevron, Chamba claimed her son was diagnosed with leukemia, Gonzales claimed to have been diagnosed with breast cancer, and Crespo's claim was for "loss of consortium" related to his wife's cancer claim.
Judge William Alsup dismissed the personal injury claims by the three plaintiffs finding that the two women had admitted during cross-examination at sworn depositions that their cancer claims were false, and thus Crespo's claim was also without merit.
The court quoted Chamba's testimony that her son had never been diagnosed with cancer and that she had not authorized her lawyers to sue for cancer. The court also quoted Gonzales' testimony that she falsely alleged she had been diagnosed with cancer because she thought "it would help her case."
In granting Chevron's motion for summary judgment and to dismiss as a sanction for fraud on the court, Judge Alsup delivered a sharp rebuke to the lawyers who brought the complaints against Chevron.
"This is not the first evidence of possible misconduct by plaintiffs' counsel in this case," the judge said. "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."
The lawsuit was first filed against Chevron in April 2006 by attorneys Cristobal Bonifaz of Amherst, Mass., and Terry Collingsworth of the International Labor Rights Fund.
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].
