[/caption]The first salvo over the gulf spill litigation involves a dispute over venue – basically, this is where both sides are petitioning the court where the case should be tried.
Bloomberg is reporting that the United States government prefers the cases to be tried in New Orleans, as the majority of those who suffered damage live in Louisiana. BP prefers Houston, mainly because it has its' US headquarters in Houston, Texas.
If I remember my Civil Procedure Law, venue is predicated on various factors, including where the civil wrong occurred. In this case, any of the Gulf States would suffice.
The venue process can get more complicated, but the gist of it is trying to procure a qualify presiding judge to manage the mine field of the complexities of a class action suit – this will hopefully result in a jury pool, which will listen objectively, weigh the evidence and adhere to the judge’s take on the governing rules of law, and comes back with a verdict from the confines of those prisms.
Perhaps BP’s thinking is that the people of Louisiana are too close to the civil wrong (spill) and that they may want to make BP pay too for “Katrina,” making the jury pool unable to be objective. The jurors in Houston might be seen as more sophisticated and more prone to give lesser monies in civil verdicts – whatever the two sides respective positions as to choice of Venue, both sides know their reasons for choosing one state or the other.
The bottom line is money – how much of it will BP have to payout to all the plaintiffs. The case claims against BP run the gamut from Wrongful Death, a case by survivors of those who died in the explosions, to losses of the businesses due to the spill. Another possible claim will be the loss of the market value of the BP stock holders because of the spill. BP expects some 300 plaintiffs from Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and Mississippi and experts are predicting the payout might be close to $60 billion. It is a given that BP will be liable to billions – it is just a matter of how many billions.
In the initial process, the Plaintiffs’ lawyers are salivating over the process of Discovery, where BP will be compelled to turn over data, if said data shows that BP was privy to reports about faulty rig equipment, lack of adequate maintenance, and faulty operations protocols, all of which might have contributed to the explosion and subsequent spill.
Even now, as I write, the lawyers for BP and the board know what they want to shell out, but my guess is that the case will go to trial; but the trial will not reach a verdict stage before both sides will negotiate a settlement. This settlement outcome is especially more likely if there is a chance that BP might go under due to the financial burdens of a prolonged litigation process, and moreover, if there are inclinations of outrageous civil penalties being found against BP.
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