Pending Cases | 2007 - 2009 | Pre-2006 | Pro-Bono

Current Pending Cases of Some Interest

Los Angeles, California: Atallah vs. Equilon Enterprises (subsidiary of Shell Oil)

This case was originally presented to us as a legal malpractice case, but after review, we recommended that the malpractice claim (against the client’s attorney) be put on “hold”, and that he pursue a fraud claim against Equilon Enterprises, a wholly owned subsidiary of Shell Oil Company. The client agreed to the approach, and asked us if we would handle the fraud claim. We accepted. The case was for fraud in connection with the sale of a gas station by the defendant, Equilon Enterprises, to our client, a former owner of a Texaco gas station. Texaco and Shell merged in the mid 90’s and all Texaco stations were acquired by Equilon, which does business as Shell Oil USA, and controls all of Shell’s gas stations in the Western United States). We claimed that Equilon had failed to disclose a Riverside County agency’s strong interest in getting our client’s station shut down because of its proximity to a water well that the agency was converting to potable use. The agency was concerned that leakage from the station would contaminate its well. The agency was dealing with Equilon exclusively regarding its demands for possible protective measures against the leakage. Equilon failed to disclose these discussions to our client even in the midst of the negotiations for the station’s purpose. After the station was sold to our client, the County agency was successful in gaining court approval from the site operating as a gas station. We claimed that Equilon should have disclosed the negotiations to our client.

The case went to trial in Los Angeles, (Equilon was represented by Fulbright & Jaworski), and the jury awarded $1.7 million to our client in damages for the loss of the value of the station (the exact amount requested by us). The jury also made finding for punitive damages, but during the separate punitive damages phase, the judge refused to allow certain financial evidence to be put before the jury and dismissed the punitive damage claim.

Equilon appealed the jury’s award of the 1.7 million in compensatory damages and we appealed the trial court’s dismissal of the punitive damages claim. In late 2008, the California Court of Appeals ruled in our favor on both matters, upholding our client’s damage award and sending the case back solely for determination (by a new jury) as to the amount of punitive damages. For the appeal, Equilon was represented by a new law firm. The re-trial of the punitive damage phase is scheduled for Feb. 2010 and Equilon is now being represented by yet another new firm.