Jones Act Maritime Lawyer : Houston Jones Act & Maritime Injury Lawyer & Attorney : Arnold & Itkin Law Firm : Offshore Injury, Maritime Law : Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida

Arnold & Itkin LLP's maritime attorneys support legislation now pending in Congress that would make much-needed updates to the remedies available to injured maritime workers and their families.  In a recent article about the proposed maritime law updates, Arnold & Itkin LLP partner Kurt Arnold observed that he and fellow firm attorney Cory Itkin feel so strongly about the existing problems with maritime remedies that they travelled to Washington to push for change.

The Securing Protections for the Injured from Limitations on Liability Act (SPILL Act) passed the U.S. House of Representatives in early July.  Meanwhile on July 15 the Senate's Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation received Senate Bill 3600 (Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV, D-WV), known as the Fairness in Admiralty and Maritime Law Act.

"All we are asking is for the offshore laws to be the same as those on land," Arnold was quoted as saying.  As an example, "Currently you are entitled to pain and suffering for an injury," Arnold observed. "But if you are killed on water offshore, you have no remedy."

Arnold reported that he and Itkin found most of the lawmakers they spoke with receptive to the need for change in available maritime injury remedies.

For more information on maritime and other personal injury matters, please visit: www.GulfCoastMaritime.com and www.LawyerForYou.com.

For a free consultation, contact a maritime lawyer at Arnold & Itkin LLP by calling toll free (866) 222-2606.

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Houston attorney Kurt Arnold recently expressed the shared sense of relief “that after three months, oil apparently is no longer spilling into the Gulf.”  But despite BP's progress on stemming the flow of crude that had been gushing from the seafloor, Arnold explained, “it will take much longer to assess the true economic damage of this environmental catastrophe. An accurate assessment of economic damages to Gulf residents and individuals must be made, and BP and other responsible parties must pay the tab.”

Jason Itkin, a fellow partner with the Houston law firm Arnold & Itkin LLP, echoed Arnold’s concern.  According to Itkin, any final tally of economic damages associated with the oil spill must encompass future losses that might result from the catastrophe.  Itkin cited issues such as a failure in the recovery of commercial fish stocks, or a slow rebound in the Gulf Coast’s tourism industry.  Those types of events could leave businesses and individuals suffering economic losses for years to come.

“It is easy to lose sight of the fact that the Gulf Coast’s  economic losses don’t stop when the oil stops flowing,” Itkin cautioned.

Arnold & Itkin LLP is a Houston, Texas, law firm that represents individuals and business harmed by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

For more information, please visit the firm's additional coverage at GulfCoastMaritime.com.

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Judge Carl J. Barbier, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, presides over more than forty of the many lawsuits filed since the devastating explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling platform.  Unbeknownst to Judge Barbier when the first such cases were assigned to him, he owned debt instruments in two companies associated with the Deepwater Horizon oil well:  Halliburton Energy Services, Inc., and Transocean, Ltd.  Judge Barbier promptly instructed his broker to sell the instruments on June 2, 2010, once he became aware of the issue.

Even so, BP, Halliburton, and Cameron International Corporation moved to have Judge Barbier recuse himself from the proceedings.  The companies argued that Judge Barbier’s formerly-held debt instruments constituted “financial interests” for purposes of the governing federal recusal statute, and thus they were a basis for his mandatory disqualification from the cases.

When Judge Barbier disagreed, the companies petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, seeking a writ that would direct Judge Barbier to step down.  A panel of the Court of Appeals recently denied the writ petition, however.

As the Fifth Circuit panel explained in its unpublished opinion, Judge Barbier denied the recusal motion because ownership of debt instruments is different than ownership of corporate stock because debt instruments do not equate to an ownership interest in a party.  The Fifth Circuit agreed, noting that stock represents fractional ownership in the issuing corporation and thus falls within the realm of financial interests “in a party.”  Debt interests do not equate to such an ownership interest.  Thus the federal recusal statute did not mandate that Judge Barbier step down from the case.

For now, then, Judge Barbier remains as the judge presiding over the Deepwater Horizon cases assigned to his court.

The case is In Re: Deepwater Horizon et al., case number 10-30631, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

For more information, please visit Arnold & Itkin LLP's more extensive coverage at GulfCoastMaritime.com.

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Almost three months after the devastating destruction of the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform, BP has finally managed to staunch the massive flow of oil escaping from the platform's breached wellhead.  A cap newly-positioned on the wellhead appears to be holding against the intense pressure of the undersea oil and gas reservoir, but BP and the federal government are maintaining a close watch to determine whether any oil or gas may be leaking from the potentially-damaged well bore.  Such leakage could then escape into the Gulf of Mexico via fissures in the surrounding sea floor.

In the meantime, Congress is considering whether to amend maritime liability laws to eliminate statutory roadblocks that some claim could bar adequate compensation for those injured, and the survivors of those killed, in accidents like the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.

For more information, please visit Arnold & Itkin's further discussion at GulfCoastMaritime.com.

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