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Posted in BP British Petroleum,Deepwater Horizon,Florida Maritime News,Gulf Coast,Louisiana Maritime News,Maritime Law,Transocean on May 24, 2010
A petition was filed on May 13, 2010, by Transocean, the owner of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that exploded on April 20, 2010 off the coast of Louisiana in The Gulf of Mexico. Transocean seeks to limit its liabilities in the disaster to $26,700,000.00 despite receiving over $400 million in insurance compensation.
Karl Kleppinger, Jr photos are displayed at his funeral
Transocean also requests in the petition that they will be allowed to consolidate all cases against it into federal court, and to put a stay on the over 100 cases being brought against it at the state and local levels.
Eleven workers, most of whom were employed by Transocean, were killed in the April 20 disaster, and at least 100 more were affected. Workers who escaped from the rig have claimed that the horrific event they witnessed caused them mental anguish and emotional injury.
Regardless of whether Transocean is successful in limiting its liabilities, it stands to gain advantages from moving the cases to federal court.
“Transocean will get to fight the case once, and they get control of the agenda,” Martin J. Davies, a professor of maritime law at Tulane University told WSWS.org. “They are trying to put a lid on the proceedings, just like BP is trying to do on the well.”
The request is being made in accordance with an antiquated maritime law, the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851, which was designed to keep ship owners from going bankrupt in the event of a disaster, by capping their liability to the value of the ship and its cargo.
Nearly 160 years later, the law’s effect is entirely different. “It is simply being used to protect multinational companies from paying their workers,” said Davies.
Although the maximum compensation was intended to correspond with the value of the ship, Davies said that the figure of $26,700,000.00 was calculated as a standard multiple of the rig’s tonnage, since the rig is not recoverable. This is despite the fact that Transocean will receive $401 million in insurance payments for the rig.
Transocean’s goal will be to show that it was not guilty of negligence in relation to the explosion, said Davies. If the court finds that the captain of the rig, or a Transocean executive, was at fault, then they won’t be able to limit their liability. But If it finds one of the lower-ranking employees to be responsible, then the damages paid by Transocean will be capped at the $26,700,000.00 figure.
Jeff Seely
“This filing means that Transocean does not believe that it should fully compensate the people who lost their lives and were injured, even though they have already accepted over $400 million in insurance payments,” said maritime attorney, Jeff Seely, from the law firm of Gordon & Elias & Seely. “That is the very definition of injustice.”