On September 24, EarthRights International (ERI) and its co-counsel filed a petition for rehearing to a federal appeals court in Bowoto v. Chevron Corp. On September 10, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal in the Bowoto case, in which ERI represents Nigerian villagers who were shot and tortured after protesting on a Chevron offshore oil platform. In December 2008, a San Francisco jury found that Chevron was not liable for the injuries to the protestors, despite the fact that Chevron had paid and directed the Nigerian soldiers and police who committed the abuses against unarmed villagers from the Ilaje ethnic group. A three-judge panel of the appeals court decided that the trial verdict should stand.
The petition for rehearing focuses primarily on the court's decision that corporations cannot be sued under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), a 1992 federal statute that allows suits against those responsible for torture and extrajudicial killings. The Ninth Circuit's decision to immunize corporations from torture suits is in conflict with the decision of another federal appeals court. ERI asked the three-judge panel to reconsider its own decision, and also asked the entire court to examine the case "en banc," before a larger panel of eleven judges. The court could take anywhere from a few weeks to a year to issue a decision on the petition. If the court denies the petition, the only remaining recourse would be a petition to the United States Supreme Court.
The Ninth Circuit's decision in Bowoto was a setback for the victims of oil-related violence in Nigeria. Although ERI and its co-counsel argued that there were fundamental errors that should have required a new trial, the Court of Appeals disagreed, finding that the trial judge did not "abuse her discretion" during the trial. "We're disappointed that the Court of Appeals did not agree that the trial in this case was flawed," said Marco Simons, ERI's Legal Director. "Chevron used the trial to argue that the Ilajes were a violent people with a propensity for hostage-taking. Their strategy has paid off thus far, but it does not represent justice. We hope that the court will reconsider its decision."
The appeal was argued in June by Theresa Traber, a partner at Traber & Voorhees in Pasadena, California. In addition to Traber & Voorhees, ERI's co-counsel on the Bowoto case include the law firms of Hadsell Stormer Keeny Richardson & Renick LLP, Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman LLP, and Siegel & Yee; the Electronic Frontier Foundation; attorneys Judith Brown Chomsky, Anthony DiCaprio, Robert Newman, and Richard Wiebe; and the Center for Constitutional Rights.
