Judge Continues To Preside Over Deepwater Horizon Cases
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As the Fifth Circuit panel explained in its unpublished opinion, Judge Barbier denied the recusal motion because ownership of debt instruments is different than ownership of corporate stock because debt instruments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.
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