In a ruling issued last night, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California dismissed virtually all of Chevron Corporation’s legal claims against an attorney who represented plaintiffs in an environmental lawsuit against the company, handing Chevron a defeat in what the attorney argued is Chevron’s ongoing campaign to avoid remediating the environmental disaster and human suffering caused by oil drilling and dumping operations in the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador.

Chevron filed a malicious prosecution suit against Cristobal Bonifaz, a Massachusetts attorney and native of Ecuador who was one of the first persons to bring the disaster to the attention of scientists and human rights and environmental activists in the United States. Mr. Bonifaz brought suit against Chevron (and its predecessor Texaco) on behalf of the indigenous people of the rainforest whose water supply and lands have been contaminated by improper oil production practices.

On May 12, 2010, United States District Court Judge Claudia Wilken ruled that Chevron’s lawsuit against Mr. Bonifaz is a SLAPP suit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). Pursuant to California’s anti-SLAPP statute, the court dismissed almost all of Chevron’s claims, ruling that Chevron could not substantiate those claims against Mr. Bonifaz. As a result of this ruling, Chevron will be required to pay Mr. Bonifaz’s attorneys’ fees incurred in defending against Chevron’s meritless legal claims. The court deferred ruling on one small, remaining claim pending limited and discrete discovery. See PDF