Suit Targets Protest at Gas Station

Equilon Enterprises LLC, a joint venture owned by Shell Oil Co. and Texaco Inc., has filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to stop the owner of a Rowland Heights gas station from protesting the high cost of gas by locking himself in a mock prison cell and plastering his station with signs criticizing Shell.

The lawsuit filed last week by Equilon Enterprises asks the court to issue a temporary restraining order barring the gas station owner, Keith Fullington, from disparaging Shell’s gas prices until a trial is held to determine if such acts violate his franchise agreement on proper signs and promotions.

The order would require Fullington to discontinue his anti-Shell Web site, stop wearing prison-style clothes at the station and end his distribution of bumper stickers with “www.shameonshell.com.”

But Fullington said he has a right to continue his protest, which began May 25 with his mock imprisonment and the station displaying signs such as “Big Oil Guilty” on the station canopy.

“It’s unconscionable. They want to take away my 1st Amendment freedom of speech,” said Fullington from his mock cell, which he says symbolizes Shell’s holding consumers and gas station owners hostage.

“They are trying to silence me and silence me quickly,” he said about the lawsuit served on him Tuesday, literally at the pump.

For Fullington it is a lopsided struggle, with bad publicity being the oil giant’s Achilles heel. He said Shell’s current gas prices are highway robbery and the public knows it.

For Equilon the issue is a breach of contract and protecting the Shell brand name. Its attorneys say in the suit that Fullington has no right to protest on the private leased facility.

In the lawsuit, Equilon attorneys note that numerous signs mocking the Shell trademark adorn the gas station on Nogales Avenue. “Shell Cell,” “Fill ‘er Up Means Shell-out” and “Shell Shackled” hang on the canopy around the pumps and on the mini-mart.

“The majority of the signs are of a color that closely resembles the distinctive yellow coloring used in plaintiff’s Shell brand name signs,” the suit said.

Fullington places himself in a mock prison cell “dressed in prison clothing,” the suit said. “Equilon has not consented to or approved any of the foregoing conduct.”

The company said that both 1991 and 1996 dealership agreements signed by Fullington, along with Shell’s Image of Excellence guidelines, require him to get written permission to make any alteration to the station.

As disparaging as the signs, the lawsuit said, are Fullington’s cyberspace escapades. On his Web site the gas station owner is pictured in his mock cell below the sign “Release Keith,” with daily updates on his protest.

For those breaches of contract, the suit said, Equilon is seeking damages and attorneys’ costs. The oil company also alleges that Fullington has demanded that the firm purchase his interest in the franchise for $987,840 and that his tactics are only a ruse to force them to buy him out at an inflated price.

That’s nonsense, Fullington said. “If we cannot work out these problems, I said they should buy me out. But I would rather get lower gas prices.” He said he is not about to back down.

On Wednesday, he was joined by Gulf War veterans angry about rising gas prices that now are more than 25% above last year’s prices. “We’ve started a black ribbon campaign on cars to remind people that veterans fought in the Gulf War for the oil-producing countries,” Fullington said.

These ongoing protests, the suit said, are why a federal judge needs to issue preliminary and permanent injunctions.

Fullington’s actions, the suit said, cause “an undeterminable number of customers to buy gasoline, auto repair services and convenience store [products] elsewhere, who may never return to the Shell brand.”