The declaration goes on like this for a while, but gets interesting again when Guerra claims that after again trying and failing to make a deal with Chevron, he learned that Zambrano had made a deal for a $500,000 stake in the judgment in return for “allowing them [the plaintiffs’ team] to write the judgment in the Plaintiffs’ favor.” Zambrano promised to share some of the money with Guerra.
As almost an afterthought, Guerra says that he has been paid $38,000 by Chevron “for my time and expenses in collecting documentary evidence” and for his personal computer, various flash drives and cell phones, email passwords, etc., which may contain evidence corroborating his claims.
Now, my first reaction to reading all of this is that I don’t trust anything Guerra says.1More technically, given the internal evidence of lack of trustworthiness, I would not regard this declaration as competent to support Chevron’s motion for summary judgment. I am a fan of Judge Frank’s approach in these matters. See 10A Wright & Miller § 2726. He’s seriously corrupt. And he admits receiving $38,000 from Chevron for payment of his “expenses.” And some of his story seems incredible. Why, for example, would he agree to the plaintiffs’ supposed offer to pay $1,000 per month, when Zambrano was already paying him that much?
But then I realized the beauty of this declaration as a matter of litigation strategy. Guerra’s truthfulness may be important to the strength of Chevron’s RICO claim against Donziger and others. But the RICO claim, remember, is really a sideshow to Chevron’s attempts to prevent recognition and enforcement of the Ecuadoran judgment in another country. On that score, it hardly matters whether Guerra is credible. In some sense, the less credible he is the better, since the overarching point is to show that the courts of Sucumbios, if not of Ecuador as a whole, were such a cesspool of corruption that their judgments aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on. That doesn’t mean I think Chevron wins on the recognition and enforcement issue. As I’ve written before, I think the strongest argument against Chevron is that when it spent a decade getting the case dismissed from the SDNY on forum non conveniens grounds in favor of litigation in Ecuador, it knew what it was doing and what it was getting in to. The courts of Ecuador were no great shakes before the Correa government came to power. I think there is a good case to be made that Chevron assumed the risk, rolled the dice, you get the idea. But Chevron has done a very good job of making the Ecuadoran courts out to be corrupt and unworthy to have their judgments enforced, and that’s why I have the picture of Randy Mastro with the “Lawyer of the Year” caption.
It’s important to note that the plaintiffs’ representatives have issued a press release asserting that Chevron has induced Judge Guerra to cooperate with money and other benefits. But the press release itself contains no evidence to support that allegation, and I have not heard back from the plaintiffs’ PR representatives in response to my request for evidence. That being said, the $38,000 payment from Chevron is plainly a concern, and if Chevron’s case counted on us believing Judge Guerra, then I think Chevron would not have accomplished much here. But as I say, I think that the less credible Judge Guerra is, the better for Chevron in some sense, particularly if documentary evidence (e.g., bank records, some of which are attached to the declaration) or computer forensic evidence ultimately back up key points of his story.
Update: Roger Parloff reports that Chevron did not just pay Judge Guerra $38,000; it also “made a two-year commitment to pay Guerra’s family a total of $10,000 per month for living expenses and $2,000 per month for housing, plus health insurance and legal fees.” This doesn’t do much for Guerra’s credibility, I think. The key will be corroboration.
Photo credits: Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP; Vivi (used by permission from Foodspotting)
- 1More technically, given the internal evidence of lack of trustworthiness, I would not regard this declaration as competent to support Chevron’s motion for summary judgment. I am a fan of Judge Frank’s approach in these matters. See 10A Wright & Miller § 2726.
Leave a Reply