Lawyers Make Their Pitch for Venue of Oil-Claims Suits

Quote: By DIONNE SEARCEYBOISE, Idaho—Louisiana plaintiffs' attorneys appealed to a federal judicial panel on Thursday to send the sprawling oil-spill litigation to a judge in New Orleans, while defense attorneys said the setting was too tainted by the slick and argued instead for Houston.They were among the roughly 250 attorneys who showed up at the federal courthouse here to make their pitch for a venue for the more than 300 civil cases filed against BP PLC and others. Mississippi and South Carolina were among others also suggested as sites to hear the suits, which include federal economic, environmental, racketeering and personal-injury claims.BP, rig owner Transocean Ltd. and other defendants want the cases to go to Houston, where they have corporate offices and an environment more sympathetic to the oil industry.Arguing for New Orleans was Stephen Flynn, an attorney for the U.S. Justice Department, who said the agency believed it would at some point have claims against defendants. He was joined by New Orleans plaintiffs' lawyers who laid out appeals for keeping the litigation in the city, which has long been considered plaintiff-friendly. With so many potential jurors whose livelihoods have been hurt by the spill, lawyers think their cases would fare better there than in Houston, where the oil industry is a major employer."If after the Sept. 11 attacks this panel had sent all those cases to Houston or brought in a judge [from elsewhere] to sit in New York, the public would be outraged," said New Orleans plaintiffs' attorney Allan Kanner. The panel will decide in coming weeks whether to consolidate the cases, as well as other related securities cases, and then where they will be heard and before which judge or judges. Attorneys have suggested importing a judge from outside the Gulf region to hear the suits in a New Orleans courtroom, splitting the cases and sending them to various judges, or picking ...
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