Mississippi Litigation Review & Commentary : Mississippi Personal Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Phillip W. Thomas Law Firm : MS Litigation Review & Commentary

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WSJ is reporting on two Senators introducing legislation to raise BP’s liability exposure for the Gulf Oil Spill under the Oil Pollution Act (OPA):

On Monday, two Democratic senators introduced legislation to raise the $75 million cap to $10 billion. The bill also proposes that claimants would be able to collect damages from future revenues for the fund, with interest, if damages exceed the $1.6 billion held by the trust fund.

A $75 million cap is ridiculously low for a spill that will affect the entire Gulf Coast and that is predicted to reach the Florida Keys and Atlantic Coast.

The article also explains that oil spill victims may be better off making claims under the OPA than filing lawsuits:

Lawsuits, however, aren’t the only way to go for an alleged victim. A piece of federal legislation passed in the wake of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill allows injured individuals to make use of a claims process in which the federal government makes payments from a fund collected through a tax imposed on the oil industry.

The benefit of the claims process: those harmed may recover funds without going to state or federal court, which can take years.

Meanwhile, a separate WSJ article explains that the oil spill litigation is headed for an MDL:

Lawyers expect the private litigation to unfold in the same way as the lawsuits against Toyota Motor Corp. over problems tied to unintended acceleration.

The cases will get consolidated and sent to one judge, who will then pick a steering committee made up of a group of plaintiffs' lawyers to direct the litigation.

Early predictions from Mississippi lawyers is that the MDL will not be in Mississippi.

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Since my last post I identified three more Gulf Oil Spill lawsuits filed in federal court in Mississippi. The three are:

1. Nguyen v. Transocean et al.—a class action filed Monday on behalf of shrimpers, fishermen, etc. Plaintiff lawyers are Patrick Sheehan and Hayes Johnson of Biloxi and Robert Gambrell of Oxford.
2. Cajun Maide v. BP, et al.—a class action filed Friday with a class as wide as the Gulf. This case has a big and interesting group of Plaintiff lawyers. The group includes the Barrett firm out of Lexington, a bunch of lawyers from all over the country and the Daniel Coker law firm from Mississippi. Daniel Coker is traditionally an insurance defense firm and I was surprised to see them show up on the plaintiff side of this case. But down the road in the oil spill litigation I expect to see insurance companies suing the oil companies to recoup money paid in claims. So Daniel Coker’s traditional client base will probably be adverse to the oil companies.
3. Trieu v. BP et al.— a class action filed Friday with the class consisting of people and companies in the fishing industry. Plaintiff’s counsel is Robert Wiygul of Ocean Springs.

Some plaintiff lawyers believe that all of the filed suits are premature and that people must first give notice to the responsible party under the Oil Pollution Act. Most people interpret that to mean BP because it is their oil. But I have read quotes where BP is blaming Transocean or other contractors who operated the rig. BP may have a point as to fault, but BP is likely responsible under the Oil Pollution Act.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuits are suing BP and the contractors such as Transocean. Transocean is a deep water driller whose stock (symbol RIG) has gone in the tank since the explosion. Plaintiff’s lawyers will love the fact that the defendants are pointing the finger at each other, since it will make it easier to prove their cases where defendants are blaming each other.

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The Sun Herald is running this article regarding out-of-state lawyers soliciting clients for lawsuits over the Gulf Oil Spill. The leader of the Mississippi Association for Justice is asking Attorney General Jim Hood to investigate:

 We have heard numerous stories of businesses along the Mississippi Gulf Coast that are getting as many as half a dozen phone calls per hour from out-of-state law firms,” the organization’s president, Steve Mullins, said in a letter to Hood. Mullins said trial lawyers’ associations in Alabama, Louisiana and Texas support the call for an investigation.

“We’ve all collectively had enough of this,” Mullins said in an interview with the Sun Herald. “You can’t just come into this state and just represent people willy-nilly. It’s illegal. It’s unethical.”

Mullins told the Sun Herald the problem of illegal solicitations has grown since Katrina, when unethical attorneys stationed private investigators and other runners on the Coast to solicit clients.

“This is widespread,” he said. Under professional rules of conduct, attorneys are not supposed to solicit cases. Also, it is a misdemeanor violation of state statute to practice law in Mississippi without a state license. 

Out-of-state lawyers running cases in Mississippi is nothing new. I remember a conversation that I had over ten years ago with former Mississippi Bar President David Smith (deceased in 1998) in which he lamented the practice and talked about how bad it was for Mississippians. It’s probably gotten worse since then. 

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Five years after Katrina the Gulf Coast is getting its teeth kicked in—again. But the Gulf Oil Spill could be even bigger than Katrina in terms of the economic impact and the area affected by the disaster. 

How Bad Will it Get? 

That’s the big question right now. Straight-shooting Congressman Gene Taylor viewed the spill Saturday and said that it’s not Armageddon. But the question remains: how bad will it be by the time they get the leaking well capped?

Clarion-Ledger writer Bobby Cleveland called the leak a “volcano” of oil:

Think about it: 200,000 gallons a day. That's 139 gallons a minute, 8,333 gallons an hour, 1.4 million gallons a week and 6 million gallons a month.