Two federal courts came down on opposite sides of the “to stay or not to stay” question on Tuesday in cases over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
On May 25, a federal judge in Mobile, Ala., denied a request by BP PLC, one of the defendants, to stay a lawsuit brought by a seafood processor, holding that a stay would be premature and that BP should answer the complaint now because it will have to at some point. BP is seeking to have federal lawsuits stayed in five of the Gulf states until a judicial panel decides whether to combine the more than 130 federal cases into a multidistrict proceeding.
The same day, a federal judge in New Orleans granted BP’s motion to stay a lawsuit filed by a fishing charter company, concluding that BP and the other defendants could face undue hardships if the scores of lawsuits filed so far are allowed to proceed prior to a decision from the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.
“[T]he defendants face the burden of litigation in multiple jurisdictions. More importantly, between the various lawyers and judges on the cases, there is a grave potential for conflicting discovery orders. This poses not only a hardship for the defendants, but mocks an efficient and orderly judicial system,” wrote U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman in Cajun Offshore Charters LLC v. BP PLC, et al.
The ruling frustrated Joe Dunn of Wigington Rumley Dunn in San Antonio, Texas, one of the lawyers representing Cajun Offshore Charters. He learned about the ruling on Tuesday night, as he was about to board a plane for Louisiana to attend a May 26 hearing on the matter. He received an e-mail from a colleague telling him the court had already granted BP’s motion.
“I’m very disappointed that we didn’t get to make our argument to the judge, and we’re going to urge the court to reconsider,” said Dunn, who felt the ruling contained “very strong language against the plaintiffs.”
Dunn found the ruling by Chief U.S. District Judge William Steele of the Southern District of Alabama much more to his liking.
In Billy’s Seafood Inc. v. Transocean Holdings Inc., et al., Steele found no reason why the case could not move forward “with preliminary steps.”
“Entering a stay at this juncture and under these circumstances would not rescue defendants from material hardship or the risk of inconsistent adjudications; after all, they must answer the complaint anyway,” wrote Steele. “By all appearances, the only tangible effect of entering a stay at this time would be to allow defendants a three-month reprieve…before being required to answer the allegations brought by plaintiff in the complaint. Such a protected delay appears both unnecessary and unwarranted.”
Tresa Baldas can be contacted at [email protected].
For more coverage, see our Gulf Spill Scorecard.
