Federal judge rules proof of direct causation unnecessary for BP oil spill claimants

Today's post is shared from jurist.org

[JURIST] US District Judge Carl Barbier for the US District Court Eastern District of Louisiana [official website] ruled [order, PDF] on Tuesday that BP [corporate website] could not require businesses to provide proof their economic losses were directly caused by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill [JURIST news archive] under the terms of their prior settlement agreement. Under the $9.2 billion settlement, BP had agreed that businesses in certain geographical regions were presumed to have economic losses from the oil spill if those losses followed a specific pattern. BP had challenged those terms [Bloomberg report], arguing that businesses could only recover if their damages directly linked to the spill, and stating that spill payments had been wrongly inflated through fake claims and poorly calculated economic losses. Barbier wrote that "the delays that would result from having to engage in a claim-by-claim analysis of whether each claim is 'fairly traceable' to the oil spill...are the very delays that the Settlement, indeed all class settlements, are intended to avoid" and that not only was the framework BP previously agreed "an efficient and 'economically appropriate' method of determining causation," but that a showing of direct causation "would bring the claims administration process to a virtual standstill." BP has indicated that it will appeal the ruling. However, Barbier did side with BP on one...

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How to Register for the NIOSH Oil Spill Workers Voluntary Roster for Health Monitoring

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is developing a voluntary roster of response workers to create a record of those who have participated in cleanup activities and a mechanism to contact them about possible work-related symptoms of illness or injury, as needed. The Unified Command and BP support the roster and the goal of identifying all workers, including volunteers, involved in all response/cleanup activities. Workers have the opportunity to be rostered during training and at established staging areas (locations to which trained workers report for duty each day) in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. NIOSH also is rostering response workers online through a secure web site. NIOSH has provided the secure link to multiple federal agencies and BP, and has asked them to refer workers to the web site to complete the rostering form electronically.

As of July 15, 2010 over 38,778 workers have registered on the NIOSH roster.

NIOSH has requested that all cleanup workers and volunteers register for the following reasons:

"We know that workers may be potentially exposed to things in an oil spill cleanup: such as oils, volatile organic compounds, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, diesel fumes, heat, noise, and heavy lifting.

"We know that training will help provide information to workers about these exposures, and we are interested in what training workers receive.

"We want to gather information from workers involved in cleanup, so that after cleanup is over, we can see if workers experienced any symptoms related to the oil spill work. Oil spill exposures may cause some workers to experience symptoms like skin rash, throat irritation and cough, and back pain. We do not know if these symptoms will occur or if they do, what will be the extent of these symptoms. We want to learn as much as we can in order to reduce symptoms now and in the future.

"Documenting symptoms in this incident may provide information that NIOSH can use to protect the health of workers in this clean up and in future clean-up efforts.

Click here for the Roster Form.

To read more about federalization and workers' compensation click here.

Click here for more information on how Jon L Gelman can assist you in a claim for workers' Compensation claim benefits. You may e-mail Jon  Gelman or call 1-973-696-7900.

Synchronizing Federal Care for Oil Spill Workers

The need for coordination of Federal benefits for oil spill workers is now becoming a major concern. It is becoming more apparent, by the day, that the State programs are now stretched beyond their limits to respond to the crisis. As The Path To Federalization expands, this debate will expand.

A recent study by the Center for American Progress addresses these concerns.


"Health threats from the oil spill may linger unseen, perhaps for more than a generation. And we will not be fully prepared to address the public health problems that arise in the future unless there is an effective and coordinated handover of responsibilities for protecting public health from the emergency response agencies to agencies with the capability and capacity for long-term monitoring and management. Federal agencies have been pulled in as needed in the gulf spill response, but it’s not clear that the Health and Human Services response has been synchronized from the top to ensure effective delivery and coordination."


"In short, the spill reiterates why we need to better manage the short- and longterm responses required to address the public health threats such disasters pose whether they are manmade or due to natural causes."

To read more about federalization and workers' compensation click here.

Click here for more information on how Jon L Gelman can assist you in a claim for workers' Compensation claim benefits. You may e-mail Jon  Gelman or call 1-973-696-7900.