Reboot Your LifeTampa Student Loan and Bankruptcy Attorney Blog

On behalf of our Florida clients with BP oil spill claims we are pleased about a recent victory, but the fight is still underway. The well known BP oil spill settlement agreement reached in mid-2012 shortly before trial resulted in a settlement claims procedures and formulas that were intended to simplify matters of evidentiary proof — has now resulted in two different appeals with two different results. Although the recent January 10, 2014 appellate decision ruled against BP, they have not yet given up Bloomberg reports.

Two different three judge panels from the same appellate court have now ruled upon BP’s objections to the settlement claims payout process. One panel ruled for BP last month and directed the local trial level judge to modify the procedures to address certain concerns. The second panel, as recently as January 10, 2014 ruled that the settlement agreement was valid and would proceed.

But make no mistake, this January 10, 2014 decision is a huge victory for the plaintiffs seeking economic damages to their businesses as a result of the oil spill. Especially in the Tampa Bay region, where it is difficult to show a direct causal link when oil didn’t slosh up on our doorsteps. But speaking to many of my clients, they are convinced that the tourists stopped coming, and this impact trickled down to all aspects of the economy. Many went out of business entirely because their margins weren’t enough to handle the losses.

Just as our Tampa Bay, Florida BP oil spill claims are heading toward the finish line, the rules are changing. We believe the new narrower guidelines will likely have a larger impact on our Florida based claims due to the increased distance from the oil spill than states such as Louisiana. Like many of our Florida counterparts, our law firm began filing claims early in the year. Because of the volume of claims received in the Spring of 2013, the estimated payout time increased from what was 60-90 days to 6-9 months. Now lossess will be re-evaluated under the new rules as a result of last week’s hearing.

We just started receiving payout notices on our first round of claims. Now I expect there to be a further delay due to a ruling in BP’s favor on an appeal of the claims administrator’s interpretation of certain key words such as “revenue” and “earnings”. It is expected to narrow the definition to exclude what is broadly called “illegitimate” claims. The problem is what determines an “illegitimate” claim versus one that the client appears to have had signiticant business losses during the relevant time period but cannot prove the exact cause of the loss.

Last week a New York Times article explained that a federal appellate court entered an injunction to delay existing and new claims and may even award refunds to BP for previous claims paid out that cannot show a causal link to the oil spill. The ruling directs the lower court to tailor make a narrow injuction to address these changes. For those who have recently received checks, you might want to consider holding onto the money until some more information is revealed about any clawback effect of the refund language.