Pacific Law Seeks Justice for Maxxam Victims

by Ellen Fred, Legal Apprentice
July 17, 2000


We believe that the only way to challenge someone as shrewd and determined as Hurwitz is to systematically track the complex legal and financial system he has created. Drawing on the collective knowledge of the firm?s attorneys and a group of community organizers who have signed on as apprentice attorneys, Pacific Law is litigating a series of lawsuits against Maxxam based on traditional doctrines of common law and free market principles. In the same way that litigation has forced the tobacco industry to begin to pay for its damage to society, our lawsuits have the potential to recover large punitive awards and to alter the way corporate irresponsibility has been accepted as the norm in business management.

n The Stafford landslide lawsuit was filed in December 1997 on behalf of the residents of Stafford, whose small town was devastated by a massive landslide that destroyed seven homes and the entire fabric of their community. Most of the 34 plaintiffs in this action have worked in the timber industry, many for Pacific Lumber, and all support the timber industry. The jury trial in this case will begin July 18, 2000, and will be tried over a 6- to 8-week period in the Superior Court of Humboldt County. (For more on the Stafford case, see sidebar, this page.)

n The Elk River watershed destruction lawsuit was also filed in December 1997 on behalf of residents where Maxxam?s rapid-fire logging has destroyed an entire river and one of the best fisheries on the North Coast. These Elk River residents have lost domestic and agricultural water supplies, and have suffered a degradation of their overall quality of life because of Maxxam/Pacific Lumber?s conduct. (The efforts to protect and acquire the ?Hole in Headwaters? and adjacent South Fork Elk River land in the upper drainage aim to restore the integrity of this battered watershed.)

The Elk River suit is before the same judge as the Stafford case, Judge John Feeney, and will likely go to trial within the next year. Meanwhile, Stafford residents have moved to attempt disqualification of Judge Feeney in the landslide lawsuit, questioning his impartiality. It seems that when he was in private practice, Judge Feeney represented a Stafford family in a personal matter, and this same family is now among the plaintiffs in the landslide case. Furthermore, Judge Feeney formerly served as defense counsel for both Pacific Lumber and Barnum Timber, the companies responsible for the logging that triggered the fateful landslide.

n The David Chain wrongful death suit was filed on behalf of the family of 24-year-old forest activist David ?Gypsy? Chain. David was engaged in a non-violent timber harvest protest when he was crushed and killed by a redwood tree felled at him by a Pacific Lumber logger. This suit was filed in the Oakland branch of the Federal Court in September 1999. Discovery has thus far proven that despite 13 years of protest activities and tens of thousands of civil disobedience arrests on Maxxam/Pacific Lumber property, Maxxam/PL did not have any written or verbal policies in place for its workers to follow regarding expectations of how they were to respond when they encountered the very foreseeable event of protesters in the woods. David?s case is set for trial in March 2000 in Federal Court in Oakland.

For more information on the lawsuits or the legal apprenticeship program, please call Pacific Law at 707-268-3800.


This article can be found online at www.treesfoundation.org/publications/article-37

Headwaters Update is produced by Trees Foundation.