Posted on 01/03/2011 2:12:35 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
...The candid footage has come to light because Chevron’s lawyers persuaded a federal judge in New York to force a filmmaker who chronicled the legal fight, Joe Berlinger, to turn over more than 500 hours of outtakes from his film, “Crude.”
The ruling has drawn wide attention because Mr. Berlinger and lawyers for the plaintiffs had argued that the outtakes were protected, in much the same way that journalists are generally not required to turn over their notebooks if they are subpoenaed in a lawsuit between other parties.
The ruling, which came last May and was largely upheld by a court of appeals this summer, is being seen as a cautionary tale for lawyers who invite in documentary filmmakers to tell the story of their legal fights. …Karen Hinton, a spokeswoman for the plaintiffs’ side of the suit, said the core of the litigation is that “Chevron’s reckless drilling practices and its fraudulent remediation resulted in the massive contamination of the environment and the deaths and illnesses of thousands of people.”
The clips, however, “have sent shock waves through the nation’s legal communities,” one federal judge said in an opinion. Another court last month called them “extraordinary evidence” that suggests that lawyers “presented false evidence and engaged in other misconduct.”
In one outtake, when a dinner companion asks Mr. Donziger if the judge will be killed if he rules against his side, Mr. Donziger says, “He thinks he will be, which is just as good.” In another, he talks about evidence of toxic contamination that is all “smoke and mirrors.”
Chevron contends that still other clips and documents show that the plaintiffs ghostwrote a crucial environmental report ……
Randy M. Mastro, a lawyer for Chevron, said, “This is a series of smoking guns that’s more like a five-alarm fire.” ....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Finally! Somebody is actually fighting back. Here’s hoping they nail some trophies on their wall.
IMHO...many “environmental” issues are right up their with “global warming” ....basically a scam.
We put a man on the moon in the 60s, we should have thousands of clean energy producing nuclear plants in this country that serve our people. Efficient cars, lights....and secure homes....for everyone...
Instead the enviromentalists shut everything down...the republicans caved in as they always do. Do one stands up to them....
My social security is worth nothing....
Already the Lindsay Grahams out there are talking about compromising with the other side on key issues...
I don’t Palin is ready yet, buy she speaks for me. Everything she says is right on the money.
I want a country that is unleased, and independent of the boobs in office.....
The federal govt is our biggest threat....to all of us...
It is about damn time businesses were allowed to defend themselves. Too often judges have disallowed evidence which would refute the legal vultures who prey on others.
I have two brothers, a number of cousins and friends who are retired from the Chevron Refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Chevron is serious about protecting the environment.
[excerpt] ..Alliances between filmmakers and lawyers are becoming increasingly common, with recent films tied to cases involving Dole Food, Coca-Cola and Unocal.
The movie about Dole — “Bananas!” — told the story of Nicaraguan banana workers who claim they were left sterile by pesticides. Lawyers for Dole showed clips from the film depicting rallies that a California judge said showed that the plaintiffs had “stirred up and manipulated the frantic and forlorn populace” to create “an atmosphere of intimidation and fear.” She threw out a $2.3 million verdict for the plaintiffs, citing fraud.
Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., a lawyer for Dole, said defendants would increasingly fight plaintiffs’ use of documentaries to promote their cause and force settlements. “The ‘Crude’ and Dole cases are going to make this a strategy that defendants are going to fight back against, hard,” Mr. Boutrous predicted.
Filmmakers say the Berlinger case worries them.
Alex Gibney, the director of “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer,” said he had successfully fended off similar subpoenas for outtakes from two of his other documentaries, “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” and “Casino Jack and the United States of Money,” about the disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Mr. Gibney said he was concerned about an erosion of trust with interview subjects. “I want to create that safe space where people feel like they can talk to me because they trust me to use their remarks in a way that’s properly contextualized,” he said.
If any on-camera remarks that were not intended to be a part of the journalistic record are open to scrutiny in a legal case, “it’s a big problem,” Mr. Gibney said. ..[end excerpt]
The “environmentalists” believe that by making “documentaries” they can appear to uncover truth, while in fact they are telling lies.
They think they’re the smartest people in the room — that they can put this propaganda out there without scrutiny.
IMHO...many “environmental” issues are right up their with “global warming” ....basically a scam.
IMHO...MOST “environmental” issues are right up their with “global warming” ....a scam, a hoax, a distraction, a means for “legal” money grubbing, a program of mining for federal dollars and action, by an extremely small percentage of the population.
A shakedown. A way for Libs to get money. Obama is a shakedown specialist.
ping for later
bookmark
controversy makes for free advertising these days
Imagine that! Lawyers who lie!
This is our biggest threat.....the MSM.
It’s not an issue if you don’t lie.
The entire movement is founded on lies - Silent Spring.
The EPA is founded by a liar - Nixon.
What should we expect?
Film makers will just start being more careful to immediately destroy any footage that is not intended to be part of the final film, to preclude it being subpoenaed.
Floyd Abrams, an expert in First Amendment law who wrote a brief fighting the demand for the outtakes by Chevron on behalf of journalism organizations, including The New York Times, said that regardless of how revealing the clips were, the court’s broad order was mistaken.
“It is essential to the creative process that outtakes — even nonconfidential ones — be generally protected from disclosure and that they be ordered produced only when they are truly needed for use in a litigation,” he said, even if some of the outtakes are useful to those seeking them.
Abram's is essentially arguing for information gatekeepers who can lie with impunity. Are these outtakes not material? He knows they are, but liberals are at their best defending statism. The 1st Amendment is a convenient tool.
His two favorite cases:
MILLS V. ALABAMA, 384 U. S. 214 (1966) and
Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo 418 U.S. 241 (1974)
I cannot find whether or not he supported McCain-Feingold or other attempts to muzzle speech by non-statists.
Scratch an environmental greeny and you usually find a lawyer who can’t make it in the real world.
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