-i- TO THE SUBROGATE PRESIDENT OF THE ... - Chevron

(or any other person in Ecuador) concomitantly lost. 1080 An example of the requisite
causal nexus for an unjust enrichment claim is when one party improperly obtains
property or services from another without incurring an enforceable legal obligation to
provide something in return. Plaintiffs’ attempt to label their alleged environmental
damages as unjust enrichment for TexPet fails because, under their own theory, any
enrichment derived from TexPet’s own cost savings, not from plaintiffs.
Fourth, the only losses that Plaintiffs have alleged in their complaint can all be
addressed through “other available lawsuit[s].” Their claim for “environmental damages”
are, according to Plaintiffs, supported by “Article 43 of the Environmental Management
Act.” 1081 Plaintiffs could have also reported alleged violations of the environmental law
to the State, which had the exclusive power and duty to seek remediation and take
other appropriate actions (e.g., fines and sanctions). See supra § 5.3.2.1. Or, they
could have filed a lawsuit against the current operator or owner—here, Petroecuador—
seeking elimination of an imminent threat to indeterminate persons under current Article
2236 of the Civil Code. See supra § 5.3.2.1. The existence of these alternative claims
is fatal to plaintiffs’ claim for unjust enrichment. 1082 Indeed, Plaintiffs’ unjust enrichment
claim is particularly absurd because they ask for both reparation of alleged damages
and payment for unjust enrichment. Even if Plaintiffs’ claims were not entirely
illegitimate, such a double recovery plainly would be impermissible and would be
directly contrary to the limited unjust enrichment doctrine under Ecuadorian law.
1080 This point is fatal to Plaintiffs’ claims for unjust enrichment under both Ecuadorian and U.S.
law. Indeed, a case filed in California based on the same legal theory was summarily dismissed in 2006
because: “The plaintiffs do not state a valid claim for unjust enrichment.” Jane Doe I-V and John Doe I-IV
v. Texaco, Inc., Texaco Petroleum Co. and Chevron Corp., Case No. C 06-02820 WHA in the U.S.
District Court for the Northern District of California, July 21, 2006, attached as Annex 14 to Chevron’s
Motion filed Oct. 29, 2010 at 5:20 p.m., (holding that any “extra profits that defendants gained” by their
allegedly substandard practices “were not conferred upon them by plaintiffs. Plaintiffs do not cite to any
decision addressing—much less upholding—a complaint that stretched a personal-injury tort claim into a
claim of unjust enrichment simply because the alleged tortfeasor got a benefit that was incidental to the
injury.”)
1081 Plaintiffs’ Complaint, filed May 7, 2003 at 11:30 a.m., Record at 73-80v, 78v-80. As shown
above, however, supra § 5.3, this cause of action could not be retroactively applied to sue Chevron for
TexPet’s conduct before the statute was enacted.
1082 This point also renders Plaintiffs’ legal theory non-viable as a matter of U.S. law. A similar
suit filed in U.S. court espousing this same legal theory was summarily dismissed. See Jane Doe I-V and
John Doe I-IV v. Texaco, Inc., Texaco Petroleum Co. and Chevron Corp., Case No. C 06-02820 WHA in
the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, July 21, 2006, attached as Annex 14 to
Chevron’s Motion filed Oct. 29, 2010 at 5:20 p.m., (holding that “[t]he inability of cash to [remedy the
alleged harm] does not make damages an inadequate remedy. If it did, many people who suffered a
personal injury would be able to seek disgorgement of profits rather than compensatory damages. . . .
[T]he mere fact plaintiffs might prefer the equitable remedy over the legal remedy does not make the legal
remedy inadequate as a matter of law.” Thus, “[t]he plaintiffs do not state a valid claim for unjust
enrichment.”)
CERT. INTERMARK VER: JD
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