Lawyers for Pennzoil, Texaco in Oral Brawl on Courthouse Steps

Lawyers for Pennzoil and Texaco stood on the courthouse steps here Monday morning and traded insults, big insults. Decorum was out; verbal brawling was in.

The day before, Texaco had sought bankruptcy protection, giving the corporate giant a respite from the $11-billion judgment that a Texas court said it must pay Pennzoil.

Until that happened, Monday had been expected to be a big day in the battle, one in which an appeals court would decide how much bond Texaco had to put up while it appeals the judgment.

The bankruptcy filing changed all that. The Monday hearing was postponed, and lawyers for both sides were back on the street in a matter of minutes. Surrounded by television cameras, both sides fired salvos in an escalating war of words.

Joe Jamail, Pennzoil’s blunt-spoken chief attorney in the case, said Texaco couldn’t get sleazier if it tried. Texaco lawyer Frank Barron heckled him, saying Jamail was spouting nonsense.

“Why don’t you wait your turn, fool?” Jamail said. “Who are you? What do you do?”

“My name is Frank Barron, and I represent Texaco,” the lawyer replied.

Jamail turned to face the cameras before responding.

“I have a book in my office, a scrapbook. It’s labeled miscellaneous lies Texaco told. One person can’t lift the book,” he said.

So it went.

Before Barron appeared, Jamail, known for his colorful language, had told reporters that Texaco was going to “slide in their own manure.” And he accused Texaco of hiding its assets and failing to comply with court orders.

Later, he added: “(Barron is) with the firm that wrongfully abused the processes and went into the federal system. They got spanked about it. That’s the reason he’s so churlish today,” referring to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that sent Texaco’s appeal back to Texas court on the bond issue.

Then he accused Texaco of not caring about its stockholders.

“Texaco’s management owns very little stock, so what happens to the shareholders is probably of very little interest to them,” he said. “And the lawyers own very little also.”

Barron, in a later conversation, said Pennzoil “speaks out of both sides of its mouth.” He said Pennzoil was telling analysts last week that bankruptcy would probably be in the best interest of the shareholders. Now Jamail was saying bankruptcy would hurt those same shareholders.

“Well, was Pennzoil lying last week or is it lying now?” Barron asked. “The answer is that it is lying now.”