Bohgal, who is suing Podolski and Zonagen for breach of contract related to his dismissal from the company in 1995, says that Podolski remarked that he "would do anything to rip off" Dunbar's Zonagen stock. At one point, Podolski commented that he "wished someone would hire a hit man to run over the bitch."
Podolski tried to patent Zonagen's own contraceptive-vaccine method, but the U.S. Patent and Trade Office has rejected the applications, citing the prior art of Dunbar's 1991 patent.
Sticks and stones notwithstanding, Dunbar has been most hurt in the courtroom, particularly since Richard Hall took over the case in January 1995. An unknown who slapped an "R" next to his name and paid the $300 to put his name on the ticket, Hall was swept into office with the Republican landslide of 1994. In the Dunbar case, Hall -- a lame duck now, having lost a primary race earlier this year --established himself as someone inclined to accept whatever argument was put forth by the Vinson & Elkins attorneys representing Baylor and Fulbright & Jaworski.
On December 20, 1995, at least a half-dozen lawyers spent several hours making arguments for and against Baylor's motion to dismiss the case on a statute of limitations issue. Despite the importance of the motion before him --whether or not Bonnie Dunbar would have her day in court --and the complex legal arguments offered by both sides, including reference to case law dating back to 1938, Hall barely took a breath before ruling against Dunbar. A judge who likes to use the phrase "cool reflection" to describe his method of judicial contemplation didn't even move off the bench long enough to go to the bathroom before dismissing the case.
Compare that to the September 8 hearing on Dunbar's alleged violation of the protective order. Arguments lasted less than an hour. Hall's questioning of Butler and Van Fleet seemed to indicate the judge understood that, because the offending documents were unsealed and discussed in his courtroom in December 1995, there had been no breach of confidentiality. Yet, perhaps aware that a reporter had attended the hearing, Hall adjourned for the day, citing the need for "cool reflection."
The next morning, with Butler out of town on business, Vinson & Elkins attorneys submitted a written argument urging Hall to sanction Dunbar and her attorney. Before Butler even had a chance to respond to this 11th-hour pleading, Hall signed an order demanding that Dunbar turn back all the evidence she had collected from Baylor and Fulbright & Jaworski.
Hall declined to discuss his decision. Van Fleet says Butler violated a clause of the protective order that allows evidence to be discussed in court and then resealed. As for the fact that the documents had been available for viewing at the U.S. Court of Appeals since 1996, Van Fleet insists no one at Vinson & Elkins knew Butler had not filed Dunbar's appeal under seal until the Press published the two memos on August 20.
While Richard Hall was making his decision, Bonnie Dunbar was in Nairobi and Kenya, working with African postdoctoral students interested in reproductive biology. Dunbar travels frequently to Africa, where starvation and disease are the products of one of the highest population-growth rates in the world. Since losing her research to Zonagen, however, Dunbar has been unable to obtain enough funding to test the vaccine in Africa -- with elephants as subjects -- as much as she'd like.
Back home, though, Dunbar does have plenty of grant money available for research into male fertility. Given the mugging she's received since filing her lawsuit, one shouldn't be too surprised if her enthusiasm for that particular area of study is at a low point.
E-mail Brian Wallstin at brian_wallstin@houstonpress.com.
