[Vision2020] BP Litigation to be Held in . . . . . . . . Boise

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal at:

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/07/23/bp-litigation-from-the-bayou-to-boise/

 

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BP Litigation: From the Bayou to . . . Boise?

 

Everyone who's anyone in the world of personal injury and product liability
lawyering is making their way to Boise next week for the Multidistrict
Litigation Panel's hearing on the colossal litigation against BP.

 

Why Boise, you may be asking? The mountain town more than 2,000 miles away
from the oily Gulf shores just happened to be next up on the roving panel's
calendar of randomly selected venues for its regular hearings. What the town
lacks in accommodations ("It doesn't even have a five-star hotel," one Gulf
attorney complained) it makes up for in seafood; its oysters come from
oil-free Washington State.

 

We outline in a story today how the attorneys descending on Boise will be
arguing for venues such as New Orleans, wanted by the plaintiffs, and
Houston, wanted by defendants. Others have offered up Lafayette, La., as a
mid-way point between the two cities, and some have suggested importing a
judge such as New York federal judge Shira Scheindlin or Texas judge W.
Royal Furgeson Jr., a member of the MDL panel.

 

Among other possible candidates is Houston's Judge Lynn N. Hughes, who has
heard arguments on Transocean's request to limit its liability. "I am
perfectly willing to do whatever is assigned to me," Judge Hughes said.

 

There is also Judge Carl J. Barbier in New Orleans, who has about five-dozen
oil suits before him. Judge Barbier sold off Transocean and Halliburton
bonds about a month after the suits came before him. On Thursday, the Fifth
Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request from BP and Cameron International
Corp., the maker of a blowout preventer that failed on the well, to seek to
have him recused, but left open channels for that possibility. Judge Barbier
declined to comment.

 

Richard Arsenault, a Louisiana attorney who has filed economic claims, said
the panel will need to pick a judge with a wide-open calendar. But with a
case that if consolidated could include claims as diverse as RICO suits and
wrongful death cases, the panel will likely opt for a veteran of mass torts.

 

"I suspect that the experience of the jurist will be the critical
consideration and the other factors will be a distant second," Arsenault
said.

 

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

 

Tom Hansen

Moscow, Idaho

 

"Corporations are an oppressed minority forced to move headquarters from
state to state in search of friendlier tax codes--sometimes being forced to
live just off our shores in tiny mailboxes." 

 

- John Oliver, The Daily Show

 

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