“BP fronted the state $25 million to support the functions of our first responders and others fighting to protect our coasts because the reimbursement process can be slow,” Jindal says. “It’s important to note that this $25 million doesn’t even scratch the surface of our state’s total needs in responding to and recovering from this catastrophic oil spill. We are designating today $5 million of this total to the [AG’s office].”
“Without this essential funding it would be virtually impossible to engage in the difficult task ahead of ensuring that BP lives up to its financial obligations and responsibilities to the state of Louisiana,” says Caldwell.
Caldwell says he learned a lot about potential legal expenses during a recent visit with the former attorney general of Alaska who handled the Exxon Valdez case. “Alaska put up $35 million in 1989 in a legislative session just to get their experts, get their lawyers, working on the main cases, and we need to do that,” Caldwell says. “We need the money from the Legislature.”
His request could very well turn this regular session, which ends June 21, on its ear. Caldwell estimates Louisiana will need as much as $65 million. He could find some help in legislation being pushed by Senate President Joel Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, but not nearly enough. Senate Bill 731 would allow the AG to execute contingency-fee contracts to hire private attorneys to help the state handle its potential lawsuit, a likely necessity if Louisiana is to retain the best legal experts, much like BP is already doing.
The bill requires the AG to document why his office cannot handle the litigation in-house and calls for Caldwell to solicit at least three proposals from outside law firms. He must also receive approval from two legislative oversight committees before hiring outside counsel on contingency.
Chaisson says he initially started investigating how states such as Texas and Alabama handle contract help on legal matters. He discovered that most states offer contingency fees to private attorneys and that the better programs have strict guidelines and loads of transparency. But he never envisioned it as a mechanism to help Louisiana litigate its way through a disaster like the one it now faces. “Then lo and behold, here comes BP,” Chaisson says.
Currently, the state can pay private attorneys by the hour for their services. Chaisson’s bill would give them a cut of the funds recovered in a particular case — much like plaintiff attorneys do in standard car-accident cases or other personal injury claims.
It’s called a contingency fee because the plaintiff attorneys don’t get paid unless their clients — in this case, the state — actually recover money damages from the defendants.
The proposed law requires a contingency fee to be payable out of all sums recovered for the state by the contracting private attorney or law firm and prohibits the attorney general from entering into a contingency fee contract that provides for an aggregate contingency fee in excess of:
(1) 25% of any recovery of up to $50 million
(2) 20% of any portion between $50 million and $100 million
(3) 15% of any portion exceeding $100 million to $250 million
(4) 10% of any portion exceeding $250 million
The bill also allows reasonable expense reimbursement for the legal team.
Chaisson says BP has billions of dollars to work with, while Louisiana is facing a $3 billion budget shortfall over the next two years. “It’s going to be the largest litigation this country has ever seen, and we ought to have the same tool as [our neighboring states],” he says.
JUNE 17 If anyone ever wonders why Saints fans hate Atlanta with a capital H, here's a good indication. Radio "professionals" at an Atlanta station created an entire segment around making fun of former Saints player Steve Gleason, who is now paralyzed by ALS. Listen, nobody's ever accused DJs of being rocket scientists. But how could someone think it is amusing to pretend to ask a man with a degenerative, fatal disease if he will be alive next week? The DJs have been fired, and are now whining about how gutless their former bosses are. Wow.
JUNE 18 Here's the latest from the Advocate on the fatal hit-and-run accident allegedly involving the president of the Livingston Parish School Board. He's accused by police of hitting a 21-year-old man on a highway early Sunday and driving away. The man died at a hospital later. On Monday, police seized the president's truck and towed it away. But he's available for board meetings: apparently a $500 bond is sufficient for this type of thing over in St. Helena Parish.
JUNE 18 Former broadcast journalist Griffin Scott has posted this plea on his blog for financial assistance from his readers. Scott, who says he was fired after he wrote something fairly innocuous (for Facebook) on his wall, is suing a media giant for his job back. He's framed himself as David going after a bloated media giant, and he's probably not far off.
JUNE 18 Here's a fairly absurd column posted on DIG Magazine about the completely absurd practice of naming killer storms. Tornadoes don't have names. Blizzards don't have names. But hurricanes do, and there's a big process to bestow them, Jacques Cormery writes. He's right about the crazy assemblage of names -- this year, there's everything from Tanya to Humberto -- and his idea that we don't waste good names on killer storms is a good one.
JUNE 17 Political columnist John Maginnis has some advice for Louisiana Republicans: grow up. After the schism that occurred in this past session - fiscal hawks teaming up with Democrats to spank the Republican "majority" and hand Gov. Jindal his, er, aspirations for continued solon control -- they need to figure out how to get along with each other, Maginnis writes.
JUNE 17 Here's the Picayune's obit story for Dorothy 'Miss Dot' Domilise, the lady who made poboys at the uptown restaurant that bears her name. Miss Dot moved to New Orleans during World War II, where she met and married her husband Sam. When she passed away Friday she was 90, and had spent more than 60 of those years working at the restaurant on Annunciation Street.
JUNE 17 This editorial in the Advocate speaks in favor of the consent decrees that have federal judges overseeing police operations and the sheriff's parish prison in New Orleans. Mayor Landrieu and Sheriff Gusman can't get along, so outside forces, like the Inspector General and the judges, are needed to make sure things run right, the editorial opines.
JUNE 18 Here's a post from Manny Schewitz on Forward Progressives that is good for a chuckle. Manny had an epiphany back in November, and is sharing it with us today: he believes that Fox "News" is killing the GOP by pandering to right wing nuts. Now, don't get it twisted: Manny's not broke up about it. He says he enjoys watching the downward spiral with a shot of whiskey and "a schadenfreude chaser."
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Just as Companies have to pay Workmens Compensation Insurance, to protect their employees, the Oil Operators should have an on-growing Environmental Super fund, to protect " OUR ENVIRONMENT ". Believe me, its not like this is not going to occur again, and again !
This should be mandatory, a legislation by our "FATCAT, (PAID IN FULL) legislators enacting a law requiring an input of money to maintain a Super Fund by every Oil Operator prior to the start-up of drilling an inland well, or/and any well off the shores of the United States, out to the boundary of America's territorial waters.....This is certainly not unrealistic,
considering the " Exxon-Valdez spill and this " BRITISH PETROLEUM. " Fiasco !