There is no reason why the claims from those effected by the disaster aren't receiving their money and certainly there is no reason for any claim to be ignored.
I'll say this much, this is Louisiana. The judges are bought and sold by the petroleum industry. The settlement process if more just than any appeal to the judiciary in the region.
There is a new watchdog on the beat. It is a non-profit corporation called "Louisiana Lawsuit Abuse Watch." (click here)
This is the kind of nonsense LLAW is putting out:
BATON ROUGE, LA (Dec. 16, 2014) — Louisiana (click here) has earned the seventh-highest ranking in the 2014–2015 American Tort Reform Association Judicial Hellholes® report of the worst places to be sued. The state has been singled out for unbalanced courts and excessive legal practices for five consecutive years.
Louisiana dropped from last year’s No. 2 ranking on the ATRA Judicial Hellholes list to No. 7 as a result of promising work by state lawmakers during the 2014 legislative session. However, significant legal reform challenges remain. According to the report, “The shameless feeding frenzy initiated by personal injury lawyers and enabled by a plaintiff-friendly federal judge that began in the wake of 2010’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill continues, seemingly unabated, and other long-standing problems in civil courts there combine to qualify Louisiana as a Judicial Hellhole for another year.”...
If there is any more tort reform in the south, except for federal judges, the states and otherwise won't need judges. I betcha number one is Texas.
Greed?
Louisiana is one of the most impoverished states in the country. I wish they knew what greed was.
See below for LLAW Executive Director Melissa Landry’s column (click here) about coastal lawsuits and the greed, instead of environmental concerns, that motivates them. The column originally ran in the Louisiana Record.
Gladstone Jones, a high-powered New Orleans personal injury lawyer, quietly filed several lawsuits on behalf of private property owners – mostly large, out-of-state landowners – against energy companies in Plaquemines and Jefferson parishes late last year.These lawsuits, filed in the 24th and 25th Judicial District Courts last month, are not Jones’ first attempt to make money off of the hot-button issue. Jones is the same attorney hired by the South Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (SLFPA-E), which filed similar litigation targeting many of the same defendants for the same types of damages back in 2013. According to the New York Times, Jones expected the SLFPA-E lawsuit to net “many billions of dollars. Many, many billions of dollars.”
After the Louisiana Legislature passed a bill to kill the SLFPA-E lawsuit, which is now pending in state and federal courts, the new private landowner lawsuits give Jones the proverbial second bite at the apple....
How do you spell Louisiana? C-O-R-R-U-P-T.
How do you spell morality in Louisiana? P-R-O-L-I-F-E.
Now was does CORRUPT + PROLIFE equal? Republican rhetoric they can be proud of.
The BP Deepwater Horizon complainants are being squeezed by the justice system and other non-profits that are thriving on making an issue of corrupt people rather than corrupt government. I think the Justice Department needs to step in to review some of the proceedings and possibly remedy this into a class action suit. There is suppose to be a $20 billion fund that can be added to if the liabilities are higher than $20 billion.
It would be in BP's best interest to settle the lawsuits ASAP, because, the interest alone on any monetary settlement will only increase the cost to the company. Any of these lawsuits have to ask for interest paid on the losses. If they aren't asking for interest and it is taking this long then the people are not receiving the best the law can provide.
I really don't want to hear any accusations about greed. The largest percentage of the people of Louisiana earn less than $15,000 per year. That is over 16% and the largest percentage in one group of income earners. These folks that are fishermen/women are low income people. They aren't be wealthy folks that can absorb their losses on an income tax return. The next largest percentage is about 11% and that is folks between $75,000 to $100,000, the next percentage of any size population is 10% and they earn $100,000 to $150,000. So there are the very poor and the healthier upper Middle Class. In Lousiana $150,000 is considered wealthy. Seven percent earn more than $150,000. The rest of the income earners fall below $75,000 per year and are primarily in the $20,000 to $40,000 range.
The loss to these folks is nearly immeasurable because they were poor to begin with, so when significant money demands comes before any judge, BP screams fraud automatically. There is nothing like a multiple billion dollar company setting itself up to reduce any costs in the USA by locating itself within an impoverished state's borders and paying for elections to enforce that poverty.
When the BP CEO came to the USA that night and told the crew aboard the Deepwater Horizon to push the drilling, that poverty was within that calculation. The USA waters of the Gulf of Mexico aren't in a safety zone when it comes to respect by CEO's that play odds with a financial outcome after the USA laws are applied.
Republicans? They aren't trustworthy and don't give a damn about the people. The complaints about BP should be on the lips of Bobby Jindal. But, they aren't. The people are pushed around and discarded as trouble makers and liars until the problem goes away.
I know these bastards and they are corrupt to the core.
Jindal is coming back from DC and the first thing he'll say when asked about the BP Deepwater Disaster is that he talked at length to the President and the AG and everyone is doing all they can. The people will just have to show patience with the process.
The people victimized by this should load up their pick up trucks with dead shell fish and tar balls and drop it at the door of the state legislature building.
Here is what District Court Judge Janice Clark said about the moral people under the Capital Dome in Baton Rouge. The problem regarding this law will persist because it will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court regardless of it's unconstitutional content. The AG should step in to ADVISE the Louisiana state Attorney General to improve the status of the people effected by BP.
Judge Clark Concludes Act 544 is Unconstitutional (click here)
On October 31, 2014, the Honorable Judge Janice Clark of 19th Judicial District Court for the Parish of East Baton Rouge issued a minute entry in which she concluded the newly minted Act 544 is unconstitutional.
Judge Clark presides over the matter filed by the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association (“LOGA”) against the Honorable James D. “Buddy” Caldwell, in his capacity as Attorney General for the State of Louisiana. LOGA filed its suit seeking to invalidate the Attorney General’s approval of the resolution authorizing retention of counsel by the Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority-East (“SLFPA-E”) with regard the SLFPA-E’s separate suit against oil, gas and pipeline companies for damages caused to the coastal wetlands. The SLFPA-E intervened into LOGA’s suit to protect the SLFPA-E’s interest in its contract with its attorneys, and after trial was had on the matter, Judge Clark dismissed LOGA’s suit.
Act 544 was signed into law following the 2014 Louisiana legislative session. It amends certain provisions of Louisiana’s Coastal Zone Management Act, and its proponents contend it prevents SLFPA-E from pursuing the claims asserted in its pending suit for damages to coastal wetlands.
Following the enactment of Act 544, SLFPA-E filed a motion for entry of final judgment in LOGA’s suit. The SLFPA-E’s motion outlined the reasons Act 544 does not apply to the SLFPA-E, the reasons Act 544 is unconstitutional, and, thus, the reasons Act 544 should have no impact on Judge Clark’s earlier rulings dismissing LOGA’s suit....
