After years of struggling with the health and environmental consequences of oil extraction, the impoverished Amazonian plaintiffs had won a historic judgment from one of the biggest corporations in the world. But Donziger and his clients never had a moment to savor their David-over-Goliath victory.
The twisted legal saga began in 1993, when Donziger and other attorneys filed a class-action suit in New York against Texaco on behalf of more than 30,000 farmers and Indigenous people in the Amazon over massive contamination from the company’s oil drilling there.
You do have the option of suing the coworker, supervisor, customer, or stranger who committed the violence against you. But this isn’t always a viable option: Individuals are often “judgment proof,” meaning that they have no assets or income to pay off a judgment even if you were to win the lawsuit.
Snay, decided by the Third District Court of Appeal in Florida on February 26, 2014. Don’t Talk About Your Case. Before, During or After. In another blog I’ve given reasons why confidentiality agreements are a bad idea. But, where there is one, or if a case is already settled and the release included a confidentiality agreement, ...
In the beginning of a case, when facts are still being investigated, the highly charged atmosphere can be poisoned by unwitting talk about the case. The case discussed above shows that a settlement can be destroyed by computer postings.
Superior Court, the plaintiff a Pakistani and a Muslim, faced comments such as “Pakistan and Afghanistan need [ed] to be bombed and wiped out because of all the terrorist activity there,” and “What is going on in Pakistan? It is a messed up country and it is creating a mess in the region and in India. There is lots of terrorism. Why don’t you people do something about it,” and he was asked by a co-worker, “You’re not going to blow me up, right?” 204 Cal. App. 4th 945, 953 (2012). Rehmani reported these incidents to his supervisor, who advised him to consider it as a joke and “not worry about it.” Id. In that case, the California Court of Appeal overturned the lower court’s order granting summary adjudication to his employer because the trial court erroneously dismissed his claims of workplace harassment based on national origin and religion . The court agreed that triable issues existed as to the employer’s liability for a hostile work environment claim because it could not hold “as a matter of law that the evidence [the plaintiff] wishes to adduce is insufficient in the aggregate to establish a claim for harassment” based on national origin and religion. Rehmani v. Superior Court, 204 Cal. App. 4th 945, 948, 959 (2012).
The court agreed that triable issues existed as to the employer’s liability for a hostile work environment claim because it could not hold “as a matter of law that the evidence [the plaintiff] wishes to adduce is insufficient in the aggregate to establish a claim for harassment” based on national origin and religion.
How can an employee bring a claim for harassment based on the unlawful treatment by a fellow employee? Generally, an employee may bring a harassment claim against his or her employer under one of two theories: vicarious liability or negligence. Swinton v. Potomac Corp., 270 F.3d 794, 803 (9th Cir. 2001). If the employee’s supervisor engaged in harassment, then the employer may be held vicariously liable , meaning the employer is on the hook for the supervisor’s actions. Id. (citing Nichols v. Azteca Restaurant Enters., 256 F.3d 864, 875 (9th Cir.2001); Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872, 876 (9th Cir.1991)). To bring a claim against an employer based on the harassment of a co-worker, however, the U.S. Supreme Court has determined that an employee would have to show that the employer knew or should have known of the harassment, and failed to stop it. Burlington Indus., Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742, 759 (1998).
Once an employer knows or should know of co-worker harassment, “a remedial obligation kicks in.” Nichols, 256 F.3d 864, 875 (citing Fuller v. City of Oakland, 47 F.3d 1522, 1527 (9th Cir.1995)). The employer must take reasonable steps to: (1) “stop harassment by the person who engaged in harassment;” and (2) “persuade potential harassers to refrain from unlawful conduct.” Id. (citing Ellison v. Brady, 924 F.2d 872, 882 (9th Cir. 1991)). When the employer does nothing or when the employer’s remedy does not end the current harassment and deter future harassment, the employer becomes liable for both the past harassment and any future harassment. Id. (citing Fuller, 47 F.3d at 1528–29). If that occurs, employees should consider contacting a San Francisco sexual harassment attorney and filing a claim with the Department of Fair Employment and Housing or the Equal Opportunities Commission.
Potomac Corp., the plaintiff endured consistent racial harassment by his coworkers, including racist jokes such as, “Did you ever see a black man on The Jetsons? Isn’t it beautiful what the future looks like?” and
Many people often ask me, “Is it harassment if my coworker makes racist remarks?” The answer: maybe. Not every mean or rude comment qualifies as harassment. On the other hand, many employees suffer long periods of unlawful harassment or sexual harassment from their fellow employees but are unaware of what they can do about it.
An employee denied a job, promotion, or raise because of unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, or other protected basis cannot sue her co-worker for discriminaion. However, she may sue her employer.
That year, Chevron filed a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, suit against Donziger in New York City. Although the suit originally sought roughly $60 billion in damages, and civil trials involving monetary claims of more than $20 entitle a defendant to a jury, Chevron dropped the monetary claims two weeks before the trial.
Despite Donziger’s current predicament, the case against Chevron in Ecuador was a spectacular victory. The twisted legal saga began in 1993, when Donziger and other attorneys filed a class-action suit in New York against Texaco on behalf of more than 30,000 farmers and Indigenous people in the Amazon over massive contamination from the company’s oil drilling there. Chevron, which bought Texaco in 2001, has insisted that Texaco cleaned up the area where it operated and that its former partner, the national oil company of Ecuador, was responsible for any remaining pollution.
Instead, that case was decided solely by Kaplan, who ruled in 2014 that the Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron was invalid because it was obtained through “ egregious fraud ” and that Donziger was guilty of racketeering, extortion, wire fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and witness tampering.
The developments that led to Donziger’s confinement were, like much of the epic legal battle he’s been engaged in for decades, highly unusual. The home confinement is his punishment for refusing a request to hand over his cellphone and computer, something that’s been asked of few other attorneys. To Donziger, who had already endured 19 days of depositions and given Chevron large portions of his case file, the request was beyond the pale, and he appealed it on the grounds that it would require him to violate his commitments to his clients. Still, Donziger said he’d turn over the devices if he lost the appeal. But even though the underlying case was civil, the federal court judge who has presided over the litigation between Chevron and Donziger since 2011, Lewis A. Kaplan, drafted criminal contempt charges against him.
The Chevron case may be most devastating for the plaintiffs in the Amazon, who never received their judgment despite being left with hundreds of unlined waste pits and contaminated water and soil from millions of gallons of spilled crude oil and billions of gallons of dumped toxic waste.
So on August 6, Donziger left a Lower Manhattan courthouse unnoticed and boarded the 1 train home with an electronic monitoring device newly affixed to his ankle. Save for the occasional meeting with his lawyer or other court-sanctioned appointment, he has remained there ever since.
But even though the underlying case was civil, the federal court judge who has presided over the litigation between Chevron and Donziger since 2011, Lewis A. Kaplan, drafted criminal contempt charges against him.
DuPont rechristened the plot Dry Run Landfill, named after the creek that ran through it. The same creek flowed down to a pasture where the Tennants grazed their cows. Not long after the sale, Wilbur told Bilott, the cattle began to act deranged. They had always been like pets to the Tennants. At the sight of a Tennant they would amble over, nuzzle and let themselves be milked. No longer. Now when they saw the farmers, they charged.
The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare. Rob Bilott was a corporate defense attorney for eight years. Then he took on an environmental suit that would upend his entire career — and expose a brazen, decades-long history of chemical pollution.
The property would have been even larger had his brother Jim and Jim’s wife, Della, not sold 66 acres in the early ’80s to DuPont. The company wanted to use the plot for a landfill for waste from its factory near Parkersburg, called Washington Works, where Jim was employed as a laborer.
The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently operated a site in Parkersburg that is more than 35 times the size of the Pentagon, was responsible.
Not only had Taft recouped its losses, but DuPont was providing clean water to the communities named in the suit. Bilott had every reason to walk away.
Carmen Taylor, who was the vice president for student affairs, says in her suit, filed last week against the university and the California State University board of trustees, that she was fired in part for being black and a woman and put in a false light by the university to news media by connecting her to the alleged killer.
A former Cal State Long Beach administrator says she was discriminated against and put in a false light by the university after she was fired amid accusations that she had a relationship with an ex-employee of the university accused of killing two people, her lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court says.