BP ordered to pay $130 million to oil spill claims administrator

Today's post was shared by JURIST and comes from jurist.org

[JURIST] Judge Sally Shushan of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana [official website] on Wednesday ordered British Petroleum (BP) [corporate website] to pay the third quarter and some fourth quarter expenses for the gulf oil spill claim administration program [official website website]. The budget and fees for the program totaled over $130 million. This order comes as the FBI esearches allegations by BP that the disbursement process has been corrupted. Although Shushan acknowledged that BP raised legitimate concerns about claims administrators approving false filings for a percentage of the payouts, she concluded that the program could not be halted on short notice based on the allegations alone. Although BP appealed immediately, US District Judge Carl Barbier, who is overseeing the spill litigation, upheld the decision within hours. The claim administration program is expected to continue operations while the court-appointed administrator and several former employees are investigated for fraud [FBI summary].

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill [JURIST news archive] in the Gulf of Mexico is one of the largest commercial disasters in modern history, and was responsible for the destruction of protected wildlife habitats that are still under reconstruction to this day. Two weeks ago, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] announced that Halliburton Energy Services [corporate website; JURIST news archive] agreed to plead guilty to...

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Debtors’ in asbestos bankruptcy case appeal estimation decision to Third Circuit

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

Fitzgerald

But then came Fitzgerald’s 50-page May 20 memorandum opinion in which the Delaware-based jurist estimated the liabilities of Specialty Products Holding Corp. and Bondex International to be in the neighborhood of $1.1 billion, many millions of dollars higher than what the debtors contended the true figure to be.

An expert working for the bankrupt companies – they are referred to as ‘debtors’ in bankruptcy proceedings as opposed to ‘defendants’ in the tort system – had estimated total future liabilities at between $465 million to $700 million nominal or $300 million to $575 million net present value.

In the end, Fitzgerald, who retired from the bench shortly after rendering her decision in the case, estimated the liabilities to be closer to the figures thrown out by attorneys representing the Official Committee of Asbestos Personal Injury Claimants and the Future Claimants’ Representative, numbers that were in the billion-dollar range.

Appropriate estimate

In her May decision, Fitzgerald wrote that after considering all of the evidence in the case, exhibits and arguments presented to the court during a weeklong estimation hearing in Pittsburgh earlier this year and during subsequent briefs and other legal filings, she considered an appropriate estimate for mesothelioma claims, pending and future, to be $1.1 billion net present value.

The judge also determined that an additional six percent, or $66 million, would have to be...

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Plaintiffs’ expert in lead paint trial says industry took responsibility for public health

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

Markowitz

SAN JOSE, Calif. (Legal Newsline) – Manufacturers of lead based pigments and paints were aware of the dangers lead exposure posed nearly 100 years ago, but promoted them anyway, according to testimony from the latest expert witness in a public lawsuit against current owners of former lead paint and pigment manufacturing companies.

Dr. Gerald Markowitz, a historian and professor at City University of New York, blamed a deregulation principle that allowed paint companies to continue mixing lead in paint for generations, despite known and documented health hazards within the paint industry.

“There was a firm belief in the U.S. up until very recently that regulation of toxic substances, except in food, should not be regulated,” Markowitz said. “It was a firm belief within (the) industry that they had responsibility rather than government to protect the workforce and protect the public.”

Markowitz testified at trial Wednesday in a case brought by 10 cities and counties in California, including Los Angeles County and the cities of San Diego and San Francisco, against companies and parent companies of one-time lead-based paint makers. The plaintiffs want the companies to pay for the cost of eliminating lead paint from homes in their jurisdictions. Defendants include The Sherwin-Williams Company, ConAgra Grocery Products, DuPont and Atlantic Richfield Company.

The People of California v. Atlantic Richfield Company et al is being heard...

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Move Over: Obesity as a medical condition is coming to workers' compensation

The recent action by the American Medical Association to recognize obesity as a medical condition is going to have a super-sized impact on workers' compensation systems throughout the nation. Today's post is shared from insurancejournal.com

Report: Obesity Monkier to Impact California Workers’ Comp

"The recognition of obesity as a disease may have a significant impact on workers’ compensation claims in California, a group said in a report on Thursday.

The group issued the report following a decision in June by the American Medical Association House of Delegates to reclassifying obesity as “a disease state.”

In the past obesity in workers’ comp went largely unreported because it was not considered a condition that needed to be addressed to treat most work related injuries or illnesses, according to the report from the California Workers’ Compensation Institute.

But with obesity reclassified as a disease medical providers may feel a greater responsibility to counsel obese patients about their weight, or if treatment for a compensable injury causes significant weight gain, CWCI stated in its report........


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The Importance of Occupational Safety and Health: Making for a “Super” Workplace

Today's post was shared by Safe Healthy Workers and comes from blogs.cdc.gov

August 7th, 2013 9:39 am ET  -  Jaclyn Krah, MA; Richard L. Unger

Graphic by Stephen R. Leonard

There’s just something about superhero movie summer releases that gets us here at NIOSH excited about safety. This summer the source of our inspiration came from theMan of Steel© movie. In the film, pre-Superman Clark Kent is working as a commercial fisherman (a hazardous job if you’re not a man of steel). He risks exposing his amazing abilities when he swoops in to save the workers on a nearby oil rig who are in great danger as the rig implodes around them.

The scene is reminiscent of Action Comics© issue #3, the original Superman comic book series dating all the way back to 1938. In Action Comics #3, “Superman Battles Death Underground“, (issued 75 years ago this month) Superman is in the right place at the right time to save a coal miner, as well as his rescue crew, from an unsafe mine filled with toxic gas. We see instances such as these riddled throughout comic books and superhero movies. There’s always a hero around to save the day.

Unfortunately, in real life we can’t rely on the Superman – but we can rely on the many super men and women in the occupational health and safety field who are always striving to improve working conditions to keep workers out of harm’s way long before they need saving. When it comes to research, regulations, and recommendations for improving workplace safety, a lot has...

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Distracted Driving: A Workplace Killer

Distracted driving remains one of the most preventable yet persistent workplace hazards facing employees who drive as part of their job. Despite years of awareness campaigns and stricter laws, the statistics remain alarming—and employers must take action. (Updated January 2026)

Did Halliburton cut a good deal with Justice?

Today's post was shared by FairWarning and comes from articles.washingtonpost.com

Is the criminal plea agreement Halliburton struck with the Justice Department on Thursday a good deal for the company?

The terms seemingly marked a setback for the Houston-based oil services giant, which had asserted its innocence in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill that killed 11 people and poured nearly 5 million barrels of oil offshore. Now Halliburton concedes that employees twice erased computer simulations that undercut the company’s argument about the causes of the disaster.

But investors on Friday shrugged off that admission. After the announcement Friday of a share buyback program of up to $3.3 billion, Halliburton’s stock closed at $45.98, up 3.7 percent.

And the terms of the company’s settlement with Justice also could be viewed less harshly:

Halliburton will pay the maximum fine for a misdemeanor, but the $200,000 is equal to just under four minutes’ revenue for the company.

The company will pay $55 million to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, but that payment might be considered tax deductible since the foundation, a conservation grant-making organization created by Congress in 1984, is a nonprofit group.

“One might read this as a deterrent in the reverse sense, in that it strongly encourages future corporate defendants to admit guilt, make separate unconditional payouts and cooperate like crazy, with the ‘carrot’ being a mere misdemeanor conviction,” said Robert Weisberg, law professor...

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