BP Lied To Feds, Withheld Actual Size Of Gulf Spill, Lawyers Claim

BP Lied To Feds, Withheld Actual Size Of Gulf Spill, Lawyers Claim:
by Michael Kunzelman

"NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- BP lied to the U.S. government and withheld information about the amount of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico after its well blew out in 2010, attorneys told a judge Monday.
But lawyers for the London-based oil giant denied those accusations and said there was no way to prepare for such a unique blowout a mile below the sea floor. Second-guessing the company's efforts to cap the well was "Monday morning quarterbacking at its worst," BP attorney Mike Brock said during opening statements of the second phase of a trial over the worst offshore oil spill ever in the U.S.
This part focuses on BP's response to the disaster and is designed help U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier determine much oil spewed into the Gulf.
The government's estimate is some 70 million gallons more than what BP says spilled. Establishing how much oil leaked into the Gulf during the 86-day struggle to cap the well will help figure out the penalties the oil company must pay. Billions of dollars are at stake.
The first phase of the trial centered on what caused the blowout."

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Torts Blog: New study finds many direct to consumer advertising of prescription drugs are misleading. Is anyone surprised?

Torts Blog: New study finds many direct to consumer advertising of prescription drugs are misleading. Is anyone surprised?:

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Blame the Seafarers? Law in the wake of the Exxon Valdez

The Exxon Valdez spill was famously blamed on a drunken sailor.  The Supreme Court barred punitive damages and maritime law blocked recovery to all but fishermen and those whose property was contaminated by the spill.  The strict liability provisions that followed were good - though the limits on liability are dubious in some respects.  But no one hesitated to criminalize the captain who was found to have been intoxicated.  Similarly the Costa Concordia  captain has been made the principal villain of that wreck on the coast of Italy.  Fontugne argues that criminalization has gone too far. - GWC
Environment, Law, and History: Law in the wake of the Exxon Valdez:
by Elisabeth Fontugne//Stetson College of Law
Abstract: "In 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground, spilling enough oil to deface the beaches and inlets of Prince William Sound. A year and a half later, Congress spoke, passing the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. And twenty years later, the Supreme Court enunciated a new bright-line rule for punitive damages in maritime cases, closing out the long years of litigation that had followed the spill. For seafarers, however, the grounding of the Exxon Valdez only marked the beginning. It heralded the advent of an era in which the global criminalization of mariners would become the rule. Putting out to sea had always been risky business. But making landfall, in the wake of the Exxon Valdez spill, could prove more perilous to mariners than any ocean journey. Against the judiciary’s successive interpretations of the tanker’s accident, this Article argues that the grounding of the Exxon Valdez can only be properly understood within its maritime context. It demonstrates that the real punishment for the spill was imposed not on Exxon, but on the men and women who choose to live and work at sea. Finally, it exposes the unfair legal climate in which mariners must now operate, and urges the seafaring community to act to change the law."

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Billions in penalties at stake for BP in estimates of oil discharged into Gulf | wwltv.com New Orleans

Billions in penalties at stake for BP in estimates of oil discharged into Gulf | wwltv.com New Orleans: 

NEW ORLEANS - It’s sure to be dry and highly technical, but the second phase of the BP oil spill trial that starts Monday could make a $7 billion difference for the British oil giant.
Already reeling from higher-than-expected costs of a settlement with private plaintiffs, BP is desperately fighting against claims by the U.S. government and private lawyers that they were grossly negligent in the April 2010 oil spill, the largest offshore discharge in American history.
After a first phase that looked at liability for the Macondo well blowout and the resulting deadly explosions on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier will use the second phase of the trial to hear about BP’s efforts to stop the flow of oil.
The plaintiffs say they will show how the company was unprepared for a spill in spite of documents indicating that it knew just how large and devastating a blowout could be. BP failed again and again in the months after the spill to shut off the flow, and it raged on for 87 days until a capping device finally closed in discharge in mid-July 2010.
The most important fight of the second phase, however, will be over how much oil actually made it into the Gulf from that broken hole a mile under the surface.
The government says it was 4.1 million barrels, based on hydraulic analysis of subsea video and other scientific reviews that determined that 4.9 million barrels spewed out of the hole and 810,000 barrels were successfully collected by BP using tubes and other devices.
But BP claims only 2.45 million barrels really made it into the waters, based on different assessments of the subterranean reservoir of oil and the oil that was successfully collected.
That’s a huge dispute, because if the company is found grossly negligent by Barbier, it would face a maximum pollution fine of $18 billion using the government’s official total, but less than $11 billion based on BP’s total.
The Clean Water Act penalties are capped at $1,100 per barrel spilled for simple negligence. But if Barbier finds gross negligence and willful misconduct by BP, the fines would increase to $4,300 per barrel.
BP has only budgeted for Clean Water Act fines of $3.5 billion, based on its assumption that it won’t be found grossly negligent and on its own high-end calculation of 3.2 million barrels spilled.

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Stents, precedents, and presidents

Stents, precedents, and presidents: "In 2013, what's the meaning of "standard of care," and what are the implications when it doesn't seem to apply to all? Dr Eric Topol takes a look at the much-discussed cardiovascular interventions in former Presidents George W Bush and Bill Clinton and calls for individualized medicine (for all)."



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After Two-Week Delay, First Federal ASR Hip Case Goes to Trial

After Two-Week Delay, First Federal ASR Hip Case Goes to Trial:

After a two-week delay, the first federal trial over Johnson & Johnson’s recalled ASR hip implants is set to begin Monday, Sept. 23, in an Ohio courtroom. The case, brought by 58-year-old Ann McCracken of Rochester, N.Y., could set a precedent for thousands of other plaintiffs who say they also were injured by the devices.

The bellwether case, which is being heard in the U. S. District Court for Northern District of Ohio in Toledo, is the first of 7,860 similar federal lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy Orthopaedics unit to go before a jury. More than 3,600 additional ASR lawsuits against the company are pending in state courts.

The problems with the ASR stem from the design: a metal cup (socket) and a metal ball. Both components are made from chromium and cobalt, and grind against each other during normal movements. This releases metal debris into the patient’s tissues, and can cause metal poisoning and serious tissue and bone damage. To address these complications, patients often require a second surgery, known as revision surgery.

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Gulf oil spill claims administrator charges BP is trying to 'slow walk' claims payments | NOLA.com

Patrick Juneau with BP Gulf Oil spill claimants

Gulf oil spill claims administrator charges BP is trying to 'slow walk' claims payments | NOLA.com:
by Mark Schleifstein

The court-appointed administrator of the multibillion-dollar settlement of private economic and medical claims stemming from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster and oil spill charged Tuesday that BP's attempts to cut his budget are part of a company strategy to halt the payment of valid claims.

"The point will not be lost to any reasonable observer that 'defunding' the settlement program can have effects almost as devastating as stopping it," attorneys representing Claims Administrator Patrick Juneau wrote in papers opposing BP's attempts to cut $45 million from the office's $131 million fourth-quarter budget.

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NFL Concussion settlement: What is the civil justice system for? PrawfsBlawg

PrawfsBlawg: What is the civil justice system for?:

by Howard Wasserman

The general view seems to be that the NFL won and the players lost with the $ 765 million settlement of the head-trauma class action. An illustrative missive comes from Charles Pierce, who speaks of the NFL "buy[ing] silence," essentially copping a "nolo [contendere] plea" that should not happen in a just world, and having "bought itself out from under its responsibilities." I have not decided what I think about the settlement, largely because I do not know enough about the merits of the NFL's labor preemption arguments. But Pierce's article fundamentally misunderstands the purposes and operation of the civil justice system.

Settlement is part of the civil justice system, particularly in damages actions. The pressure to settle comes from multiple sources, often including the presiding judge (as was the case here, where Judge Brody ordered the parties to mediation and set a deadline for settling). The plaintiffs, who know more about the case than anyone sitting on the outside commenting, agreed to the settlement. There was a professional mediator involved, who worked to bring everyone to an ultimately mutually agreeable solution. And the judge still must sign-off on the agreement (and presumably will). So the ire at the NFL and the suggestion that it somehow has escaped justice by paying money seems misplaced, when the league did not settle unilaterally or in a vacuum, but only with the agreement of several other actors. And Pierce's comparison of the NFL to Texas fertilizer plants that uniltaerally refuse (presumably in violation of law) to allow inspections is, to say the least, overwrought. The NFL did nothing wrong in the context of litigation other than availing itself of its procedural rights and the settlement mechanism; it is troubling to tar an entity for doing that.

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BP Claims Administrator Juneau Cleared in Probe by Freeh - Businessweek

BP Claims Administrator Juneau Cleared in Probe by Freeh - Businessweek:
Patrick Juneau - the court-appointed administrator of the BP Gulf oil spill settlements has been slammed by BP and those who reflexively joined the attack like Joe Nocera in the Times.  Judge Barbier appointed the former FBI director to look into BP's charges against Juneau, whose practice was mainly liability defense.   Freeh's report is HERE.- GWC

The administrator of BP Plc (BP/)’s $9.6 billion partial settlement of claims from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill didn’t engage in any misconduct, an independent investigation found.

Louis Freeh, former director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said he had “not found evidence” that Patrick Juneau, the claims administrator, “engaged in any conflict of interest, or unethical or improper conduct.”
Freeh said that while he found “problematic” conduct by certain claims-administration employees, it shouldn’t stall processing payments to spill victims.

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BP Balks at Deal it Struck in Gulf

BP Wants To Halt Deepwater Horizon Claims Process http://n.pr/17AExhg