The Law Blog of Plaintiff's Attorney Max Kennerly
On Sunday, the New York Times returned to third-party funding of lawsuits with “Investors Put Money on Lawsuits to Get Payouts:”
Large banks, hedge funds and private investors hungry for new and lucrative opportunities are bankrolling other people’s lawsuits, pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into medical malpractice claims, divorce battles and class
…
It’s no secret that oil companies like Chevron play hard ball; just a few years ago, Chevron paid $30 million to settle allegations that it had bribed Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq to participate in the UN’s oil-for-food program.
As most readers know, down in Ecuador Chevron is defending a civil case over alleged contamination…
A federal judge in Manhattan has taken the extraordinary step of granting Chevron’s motion to depose a counsel for its adversaries in the massive toxic tort litigation over oil contamination in Lago Agrio, Ecuador.
…
Kaplan based his ruling on evidence Chevron produced from outtakes of the documentary "Crude," which
…
Kenneth Feinberg, whose pro bono publico work in the 9/11 Compensation Fund was widely lauded, is back again administering the $20 billion BP Compensation Fund and is in the middle of a publicity tour on the Gulf of Mexico. C-SPAN just posted a video of him discussing the Fund and his work on it…
Judicial supremacy made an unexpected comeback this week with Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana, a "fair" and "terrifying" judge (who, for what it’s worth, dismissed one of my cases a few months ago — no hard feelings), granting an injunction against the Secretary of the Interior from enforcing the Obama administration’s moratorium…
Some background: the Oil Pollution Act establishes strict liability for anyone who spills oil, but limits that liability in the case of offshore rigs to $75 million per spill, plus removal costs. Congress has contemplated removing those caps for the BP spill and all future spills.
Over at the National Law Journal, David Ingram reports…
Did Halliburton improperly cement the drill hole at Deepwater Horizon? Did Transocean fail to activate the blowout preventer — or were the shear rams too weak to crimp pipes designed for deepwater drilling? Why didn’t BP have any contingency planning in place for a spill of this magnitude?
Whatever the cause, my hometown of Ocean Springs…