As expected, BP is moving to stay federal court lawsuits pending a transfer to the Multi-district Litigation (MDL).Here is a motion filed Friday in Parker v. Transocean et al.

Technically, an MDL has not yet been established. But that is a mere formality. Here is BP’s motion seeking to transfer 70 cases to an MDL proceeding. This is much greater than the “we’re gonna win in 90 days” group proposed by a few plaintiff lawyers on April 30.

Here is the list of actions that BP wants to include in the MDL. Once the MDL is established federal courts will routinely transfer new filings to the MDL.

The real news in the filings is that BP seeks to have the MDL action in Houston, Texas, which is in the Southern District of Texas. The main reasons supporting this location is that it is the headquarters of all the defendants and is where key witnesses and documents are located.

The defendants are obviously looking for a home field advantage in Houston. In addition, the spill is not moving in that direction. The defendants would obviously like to avoid having the case pending in a court located in an area where the spill makes land fall.

It seems to me that the MDL should be located in the Southern Division of the Southern District of Mississippi. That means Gulfport. The courthouse is located a block from the Gulf and the federal judges can watch the oil make land fall from their office windows. If the spill gets really bad, defendants’ lawyers will be able to smell the oil as they walk into the courthouse. You can’t get more convenient than that.