Maritime Lawyer for Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig Survivor Tells PBS His Client Has No Income and His Case is Still Stalled in Federal Court

Posted in BP British Petroleum,Cameron International,Deepwater Horizon,Halliburton,Maritime Lawsuits,Texas Maritime News,Transocean on April 25, 2011

HOUSTON, TX – On PBS Newshour, Hari Sreenivasan conducts an interview with Chris Choy, his wife, Monica and his attorney, maritime lawyer Steve Gordon.

Maritime lawyer Steve Gordon on PBS Newshour interview with Hari Sreenivasan

One Year Later after the explosion, fire and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon, oil rig worker, Chris Choy has had no income and his case is stalled in Federal Court.

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Through some legal maneuvering by BP and Cameron International, the maker of the blowout preventer, they have lumped Chris’s case in with everyone else’s case in the United States into new Orleans Federal Court and basically tied our hands. Gordon says that he is blocked from taking a single deposition or getting an answer to a single written question.

Maritime lawyer, Steve Gordon, says that he expected some of that because this is a large case, but on December 15th, 2010, BP cut him off salary-wise so he has had no imcome since December 15th. Chris is not alone in this regard. There are other people out there like this. This has made it very difficult for the families involved in this case.

In the interview, Gordon reminds us that the Exxon- Valdez case took 20 years to ultimately conclude. He anticipates some closure to this case in 2012.

So their plan was to take these people – as well as the 11 who died – and lump them into – for instance, the fisherman’s claims, or somebody might have owned a dock that had oil on it. Steve Gordon goes on to say:

“Really, the law – and I know this judge and he’s a very fair judge – some day he’s going to address Christopher’s claim and he’s going to say that you have a right to go to State Court where you started and I have a feeling that when we get to Texas State Court, justice will be served.”

Gordon says that Transocean, BP and Halliburton all say that they want to take care of these people, but then they file things that are completely opposite to that.