Client_News

Houston Chronicle:

Though lawyers all along the Gulf Coast and from environmental groups nationwide have sued BP over the Deepwater Horizon disaster, Southeast Texas has a group of lawyers who've sued BP before, repeatedly.

Some of these lawyers say they may have an edge in the oil spill cases because they've sparred with BP before over the Texas City plant explosion that killed 15 in 2005, other individual deaths at that plant, chemical spills, price fixing and other matters.

Others doubt that past fights with BP will help in the massive upcoming litigation alleging deaths, injury and economic loss arising from the well blowout April 20 that destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, killed 11 workers and led to the oil spill that still is spewing thousands of barrels of crude a day into the Gulf of Mexico.
BP is not the only defendant in the lawsuits. Others include Transocean, which owned and operated the Deepwater Horizon, and contractors Halliburton and Cameron. But BP may wind up with the biggest piece of the liability as the company that leased the rig and holds the federal lease in which the well is located.

...

Mark Lanier, who sued BP in the Texas City explosion and has filed Deepwater Horizon lawsuits, said this litigation may be different because it involves another division of BP and because the company has changed CEOs since that explosion.

Attorney Mark Lanier quoted in Houston paper about Deepwater Horizon disaster

"But BP doesn't wage war on all fronts. They pick areas of greatest importance to them and greatest weakness to us," Lanier said. He said he expects the company to push for trials in cases it perceives as weak, or brought by lawyers it perceives as least effective.

"Also, we know BP doesn't hire a lawyer, they hire a billion lawyers," Lanier said. "They hire every stinkin' law firm they can."

Lanier said smoking guns specific to the Texas City explosion probably won't help, but broader lessons about BP's culture and behavior might - such as a tendency to lose e-mails that came out during the Texas City litigation.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/7017267.html

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