NEW ORLEANS — The civil trial over America’s biggest oil spill has been delayed for a week as efforts to settle the multibillion-dollar litigation intensify. þþþProceedings were scheduled to begin Monday, but on Sunday afternoon, Judge Carl J. Barbier of Federal District Court, who is overseeing the sprawling litigation, issued a brief order pushing the opening day back to March 5 “for reasons of judicial efficiency and to allow the parties to make further progress in their settlement discussions.” In an unusual move, the judge said the court was issuing the order “on its own motion,” as opposed to a request from any party in the case. þþEdward F. Sherman, a law professor at Tulane University who has followed the pretrial maneuvers, said a delay so close to the starting date suggested a strong possibility of a settlement. þþDavid M. Uhlmann, who led the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section from 2000 to 2007, agreed, saying “Judge Barbier would not have agreed to a delay of the trial unless a settlement was within reach.” þþThe order came after a conference call by the judge and the parties in the case. BP and the steering committee of plaintiffs’ lawyers issued a joint statement saying that they had been given “more time to continue settlement discussions and attempt to reach an agreement” but that “there can be no assurance that these discussions will lead to a settlement agreement.” þþBP and its business partners have many reasons to want to extricate themselves from the uncertainty and embarrassment of a trial. The federal government, which stands to collect the largest part of the billions of dollars in potential liability from the defendant companies in environmental fines, could also benefit from the assured recovery of a settlement. þþIf the settlement talks fail and the trial does begin on March 5, Sheryl Revette plans to be sitting in the courtroom. Ms. Revette’s husband, Dewey, was one of the 11 rig workers killed in the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which spilled millions of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. þþHundreds of thousands of potential plaintiffs have settled with BP through a $20 billion fund the company created at the request of the Obama administration. þþOne of those who settled, Sandy DeFelice, co-owner of Pascal’s Manale restaurant in New Orleans, said he was happy that he did not have to wait for years for a court to deliver an uncertain amount. “We’re done,” said Mr. DeFelice, whose restaurant’s signature dish, barbecue shrimp, had to be taken off the menu during the worst of the spill. “Whatever happens in the trial happens. I can’t worry about that.” þþJudge Barbier, who would hear the case without a jury, has issued pretrial rulings limiting the scope of the vast amount of evidence collected — more than 300 plaintiffs’ lawyers have produced tens of millions of pages of documents, thousands of exhibits and hundreds of videotaped depositions. The judge said he would not entertain testimony about previous BP accidents. He has also opened the door for punitive damages for some plaintiffs. þþOf those still in the pool of plaintiffs, several who sat for a recent interview in their lawyer’s office said that they would have preferred to settle, but that they had gotten no satisfaction from the compensation fund, administered by Kenneth R. Feinberg, a lawyer in Washington. þþGlenn Poche, a shrimper, said he had lost 90 percent of his retail business. Despite official assurances that seafood pulled from the Gulf of Mexico is safe, many of his customers “want to wait a couple more years” to be sure. þþKenneth Bundy, who owns a commercial dock where Mr. Poche sells his shrimp, said he had received $25,000 from the fund, but no payments to cover his continuing losses. His son, Grant, who manages the dock, has not received a settlement offer and is getting by financially by working a side job at a small seafood business. “If we don’t get some money from somewhere, we’re going to be out of business,” Kenneth Bundy said. þþDiane Poche, Glenn Poche’s wife, said she had received $30,000 from the fund — “just a little drop in the bucket of what we’ve lost” — but her claims for more had been refused, she said, her voice rising. “I sent in paperwork over two inches thick!” þþThe Poches’ claim has been championed by Senator David Vitter of Louisiana, who wrote to Mr. Feinberg last year. In his response, Mr. Feinberg said that the Poches’ claim was for more than twice the annual gross income Mr. Poche had reported before the oil spill and that Mrs. Poche was listed as a housewife, not a business partner, on the family’s tax forms. Mr. Feinberg has said that thousands of claims have been rejected because of inadequate documentation. þþProfessor Uhlmann suggested that “claims that are weak may fare even worse in court, where the burden of proof will be on the plaintiffs.”þ
Source: NY Times
