Legal News

Appeals court suggests 'Crude' outtakes may be limited

By Richard Binder

Joe Berlinger, the director of the documentary "Crude," may have to turn over some outtakes to Chevron after all, according to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The three-judge panel seemed to agree with the previous decision by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who said Berlinger could not use the First Amendment to shield himself from the effort by Chevron to get the footage. The company believes this footage will prove that plaintiffs counsel Steve Donziger engaged in misconduct during the environmental litigation in Ecuador that could cost Chevron $27 billion. 

The panel did suggest they might limit the amount of footage to only those outtakes that feature Donziger interacting with Ecuadorian government officials, a member of the judiciary and an ostensibly neutral expert. They also raised the possibility of assigning a special master to recommend which footage should be turned over. 

Berlinger said that he never expected that he would get a total reversal of Kaplan's order so that he would not have to turn over any footage, only that the subpoena should be greatly limited in scope. But he did say that to not challenge Kaplan's decision would have set a precedent inhibiting the work of documentary filmmakers and investigative reporters.

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Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on July 15, 2010 (boomark / email).