Trying to fend off a malicious prosecution lawsuit against a plaintiff lawyer who sued Chevron, lawyers at Kerr & Wagstaffe in San Francisco are saying the company is just trying to punish their client.
In an anti-SLAPP motion filed last week, they argue that Chevron’s move against Massachusetts lawyer Cristobal Bonifaz is a “quintessential” strategic lawsuit against public participation: “a multinational corporation sues a 75-year-old semi-retired attorney, who operates his solo practice from a barn in rural Massachusetts, simply because the attorney — who is a native of Ecuador — had the audacity to dedicate the last 15 years of his legal career to legally assisting the poor, indigenous people of the Ecuadorian Amazon,” wrote Kerr & Wagstaffe partner Jacqueline Scott Corley.
