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Starnes & Atchison defends Drummond Ltd. in high-profile trial.
Romero v. Drummond (20044)
On July 26, 2007, a panel of ten jurors from the Northern District of Alabama unanimously found in favor of Drummond Ltd., and Drummond Ltd.’s President, Augusto Jimenez, in a historical matter involving claims brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA). The claims pertained to allegations of aiding and abetting illegal paramilitary groups operating around Drummond’s mining operations in La Loma, Columbia, South America. Tony Davis and Phil Piggott, together with the law firm of Baker Botts in Washington, D.C., successfully defended the case that had been pending since 2002.
In March, 2001, unknown assailants pulled two union leaders from a Drummond company bus that was transporting workers home after their shift had concluded. The unknown assailants stopped the bus miles from the entrance to the Drummond mine and killed the two union leaders. Approximately six months later, another union leader was killed on a public bus miles from Drummond’s property on a day he was off from work.
Lawyers from the United Steelworkers of America and the International Labor Rights Fund sued Drummond Ltd. and its President on behalf of the families of the union leaders and the union itself alleging claims under the Alien Tort Claims Act. The Plaintiffs alleged that Drummond Ltd. aided and abetted the Colombian paramilitaries in killing and torturing the three labor union leaders.
The case concluded in a defense verdict for Drummond Ltd. and its President, after a 2-1/2 week trial in federal district court in Birmingham, Alabama. It was the first of its kind to ever go to trial under the Alien Tort Statute, a 218 year old law, which labor unions and human rights advocates have recently used to bring claims against American corporations operating in foreign countries. The Alien Tort Claims Act was adopted in 1789 as part of the original Judiciary Act. For almost two centuries, the statute laid relatively dormant, supporting jurisdiction in only a hand full of cases. The ATCA was originally intended to protect United States financial interests from piracy on the high seas, however, it was revived in the early 1980s by labor unions and human rights advocates to attempt to seek monetary damages from American corporations from alleged overseas human rights violations.
Drummond was delighted by the verdict and glad that it had the opportunity to eventually tell its story to the jury. Drummond waited five years for the opportunity to demonstrate that the claims made against the company and its president were false.
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