BP wants Houston judge with oil ties to hear spill cases
Scott Hiaasen and Curtis Morgan in the Miami Herald:
Facing more than 100 lawsuits after its Gulf of Mexico oil spill killed 11 workers and threatened four coastal states, oil giant BP is asking the courts to place every pre-trial issue in the hands of a single federal judge in Houston.
That judge, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes, has traveled the world giving lectures on ethics for the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, a professional association and research group that works with BP and other oil companies. The organization pays his travel expenses.
Hughes has also collected royalties from several energy companies, including ConocoPhillips and Devon Energy, from investments in mineral rights, his financial disclosure forms show.
Hughes, appointed to the bench in 1985 by then-President Ronald Reagan, declined to comment for this report.
Legal experts say the request for a single judge, while not unprecedented, is unusual, and they surmise BP is seeking rulings from a judge well-versed in the company’s issues.
Edward Sherman, a law professor at Tulane University in New Orleans who has closely followed the BP legal maneuvers, said BP probably studied Hughes’ past rulings and his caseload before suggesting he take the cases.
"Obviously, another factor is they would like to have a judge who understands their point of view," Sherman said.
Hughes is "well known as a competent judge," Sherman added.
No one has suggested that Hughes — or any judge — would rule a certain way before hearing the evidence. Records show the jurist has ruled both for and against the industry — including one ruling on behalf of oil companies later overturned on appeal.
In court papers, BP said Hughes should handle the cases because he is already hearing one class-action case, filed by a group of Vietnamese-American fishermen after the spill, and has presided over complex, multi-jurisdictional cases in the past.
The company wants all of the oil spill lawsuits — at least 98 as of May 21 — to be heard in Houston because that’s the home of BP’s American headquarters, where many witnesses and records are located, and where many of the suits have been filed. BP is facing suits in at least seven different courts in five states, including Florida.
BP requested the judge in papers filed with the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, as part of a larger request to have all pre-trial matters decided in one court to save time and money. The special panel of judges will decide in July if the BP suits should be consolidated in a single court — and if Hughes should handle the cases.
Shrewd lawyers often try to steer cases to judges viewed as potentially sympathetic to their arguments, said Elizabeth Chamblee Burch, an assistant professor of law at Florida State University.
"Sometimes they will ask for a judge by name," Burch said. "Other times, they are a bit wilier about what they’ll ask for, so it looks less blatant."
Other lawyers were surprised that BP was seeking to select its own judge; in both state and federal courts, cases are typically assigned to judges randomly.
"I’m utterly horrified," said David Guest, an environmental lawyer with Earthjustice with decades of experience handling complex pollution cases. "That’s not to impugn the integrity of the judge, but something is fundamentally wrong when you’re doing a thing like that."
Lawyers for BP referred questions to a spokesman, who did not return calls Wednesday…
