15 Years Later, Dickens of Case Near Trial : Oil: Some witnesses have died, others may not remember details. But a suit charging six companies with fixing prices is close to trial.

Fifteen years after Long Beach accused six major oil companies of price-fixing, it appears that the case, which could change the way oil is bought and sold in California, is finally on its way to trial. But unlike fine wine and good cheese, both sides agree, lawsuits do not improve with age.

Several witnesses who lined up to testify when the case was filed in 1975 are dead. So is at least one lawyer. Some of the witnesses still living are in their 80s and may have, in the words of one lawyer, “lost it.” And even the sharpest witness would be hard-pressed to recall the details of meetings held when John F. Kennedy was President.

“We call this the ‘Jarndyce case’--from the Dickens story ‘Bleak House,’ about a case that goes on so long no one remembers what it’s about,” said Brian McMahon, one of the attorneys representing Long Beach.

The huge antitrust suit, believed to be one of the longest ever to crawl through the justice system, accuses the Chevron Corp., Exxon Corp., Mobil Oil Corp., Shell Oil Co., Texaco Inc. and Union Oil Co. of California of conspiring to hold down the price of crude pumped out of the Wilmington oil field that extends into Long Beach Harbor.

A Los Angeles federal court judge ruled in 1985 that the city’s evidence against the oil companies was too soft. Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the oil giants appeared to act “in conscious parallel” and ordered the case to trial. Last week, the highest court in the land agreed, a victory for a city that has waited so long to go to court, it is no longer sure where all of its witnesses live.

“Or if they’re even alive, frankly,” McMahon said.

When the case was filed, McMahon was in law school. His son, born one month before the city’s case, is now a freshman in high school, and a trial date still is not set.

The city and the state--which eventually joined in the lawsuit--allege that oil company executives met in their various Los Angeles offices during 1961 and 1962 and agreed to pay about 90 cents a barrel less for Wilmington crude than the going market price.

One problem is most of those executives were near retirement even then.

One of the city’s most important witnesses--an Exxon executive who had been prepared to testify against the oil company’s practices--died a few years ago, McMahon said. His deposition--statements taken under oath outside the courtroom--are all that remain and will probably be read to the jury by an attorney, McMahon said.

“There is no substitute for putting a real live person in front of a jury,” he lamented.

Time hasn’t been much kinder to the oil companies, which stand to lose $800 million if the city prevails, according to Chevron’s San Francisco attorney, Anthony P. Brown, who today has five grandchildren he did not have when he took the case.

One of Brown’s original witnesses was Chevron’s chairman of the board, who decided what price the company should pay for oil.

“OK, now he’s dead,” Brown said. “He was absolutely a marvelous witness, a gracious individual. The jury would have loved him, and he denied that the defendants conspired to depress the price of crude oil.

“We’ll have to read to the jury what he said. It will probably put the jury to sleep, and they’ll miss it. A thing like that could make or break a case.”

Lawyers expect the trial to begin next fall, not the most opportune time for oil companies, with the Alaska and Orange County oil spills still fresh in the minds of prospective jurors, Brown said.

“Keep in mind we’re defending the petroleum industry,” he said, “and every time one of them knocks the bottom out of a tanker ship, it doesn’t help us. Oil companies are not popular.”

The city, which acts as trustee for the state for most offshore oil, is claiming $280 million in lost profits. Antitrust cases allow for treble damages, bringing the total potential winnings to $840 million.

But with inflation since 1975, even if the city wins it all, 840 million 1990 dollars amount to less than a third of the city’s initial losses, McMahon said.

“A businessman could look at this and say price-fixing is worthwhile, because we won’t have to repay much of what we made,” he said. “That is the real sad thing about all this taking so long.”

And why did it take so long?

“The defendants procrastinated at all points. It took some oil companies more than a year to produce documents,” McMahon said.

“That is absolute nonsense and kind of disgusting,” Brown shot back. “It spent five years in the appeal process, and not a minute of that was caused by any tactics by the defense.”

Adversaries for years, you might think the two attorneys would at least agree on the old saw, “justice delayed is justice denied.”

They don’t.

Said McMahon: “Oh yes, absolutely.”

Said Brown: “I’ll tell you after the trial.”