Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

After JME filed five claims for compensation with the Settlement Program, the Settlement Program determined that JME was a "failed business" under the meaning of the Settlement Agreement and calculated JME's compensation according to the Failed Business Economic Loss framework. The district court then granted discretionary review and agreed that JME was a failed business under the Settlement Agreement.Applying de novo review, the Fifth Circuit vacated and remanded, holding that the district court misinterpreted the Settlement Agreement's first and third definition of a "failed business" and erroneously concluded that the Settlement Program correctly classified JME as a failed business because JME ceased operations and wound down, or otherwise initiated or completed a liquidation of substantially all of its assets. View "Claimant ID 100081155 v. BP Exploration & Production, Inc." on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of discretionary review in an appeal of claims submitted to BP's Economic and Property Damages Settlement Agreement. The court held that the reviews conducted by the Claims Administrator and Appeal Panel were consistent with the court's recent decision in Texas Gulf Seafood, BP Expl. & Prod., Inc. v. Claimant ID 100094497, 910 F.3d 797, 799 (5th Cir. 2018). In this case, the Appeal Panel did not defer to the claimant's "Management Fee" label as prohibited by Texas Gulf Seafood. Rather, the Appeal Panel conducted its own de novo review of the expense classification, considering the substantive nature of the Management Fee, and determined that the Management Fee was a fixed cost rather than a variable cost.The court also held that BP's arguments regarding the substantive accuracy of the "fixed" classification only raise the correctness of a fact-dependent decision in a single claimant's case. Therefore, the district court did not err in declining to grant discretionary review to determine whether the Claims Administrator and Appeal Panel accurately classified the Management Fee expense. View "BP Exploration & Production, Inc. v. Claimant ID 100166533" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of discretionary review of the $2 million award claimant, an manufacturer of signs, received pursuant to the Economic and Property Damages Settlement from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The court held that BP has not established that claimant's causation attestation was implausible. The court also held that, even if applying a variable classification to the research and development expenses was substantively inaccurate, it simply raised the correctness of a discretionary administrative decision in the facts of a single claimant's case and thus did not warrant discretionary review. Finally, the court held that even if the claims administrator erred in omitting the adjustments at issue, the error did not raise a recurring issue on which the appeal panels were split or involved a pressing question of how the settlement agreement should be interpreted. View "BP Exploration & Production, Inc. v. Claimant ID 100261922" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from a contract dispute between two oil-drilling businesses, Eni and Transocean. The district court granted judgment in favor of Transocean and rejected Eni's claims surrounding Transocean's maintenance of its equipment, found that Eni had wrongfully repudiated the contract, and awarded damages to Transocean.The Fifth Circuit vacated the damages award and held that the district court erred by simply applying the Standby Rate because Eni never issued any instructions after repudiation. In this case, the district court should have attempted to determine, in the hypothetical nonbreach world, how many days the Deepwater Pathfinder would have spent at each applicable rate. Accordingly, the court remanded with instructions to recalculate the damages using the correct methodology. The court found Eni's remaining arguments lacking in merit and affirmed as to those claims. View "ENI US Operating Company, Inc. v. Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling, Inc." on Justia Law

BP argued that claimant was not entitled to the $65 million award it received pursuant to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill Settlement Agreement because it did not suffer a loss that was caused by the oil spill despite submitting a claim form certifying that it did. The Fifth Circuit held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining discretionary review because BP has not demonstrated that claimant did not suffer a post-spill loss, and claimant satisfied the causation formula set out in Exhibit 4B of the Settlement Agreement and formally attested to the fact that its losses were caused by the oil spill. The court reasoned that, while the evidence BP presented may indicate additional, market-related causes for claimant's loss, the existence of these alternative causes did not eliminate the possibility that the oil spill contributed to cause claimant's loss, nor did it preclude claimant from recovering under the Settlement Agreement. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "BP Exploration & Production, Inc. v. Claimant ID 100141850" on Justia Law

NBA player David West negotiated a contract with the New Orleans Hornets before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. West received the full $45 million amount specified in his contract, but still submitted an "Individual Economic Loss Claim" under the Deepwater Horizon Economic and Property Damages Settlement Agreement. The Claims Administrator for the Agreement awarded West almost $1.5 million in "lost" earnings.The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's denial of discretionary review of the Settlement Appeal Panel's decision affirming the award and held that the district court abused its discretion in this case when the decision not reviewed actually contradicted or misapplied the Agreement. Under the circumstances, West expected to earn in the absence of the spill precisely what he did earn after it. Therefore, he did not suffer unexpected damages, and Exhibit 8A did not apply to him. The court also held that West did not suffer actual or unexpected "losses" or damages, because he earned exactly what he was entitled to receive under his contract. The court explained the fact that he received less money in 2010 than in 2009 did not mean he "lost" anything or was "damaged" in any way. Rather, it meant only that he agreed to a front-loaded contract, and he agreed to do so many years before the spill. View "BP Exploration & Production, Inc. v. Claimant ID 100281817" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of 104 plaintiffs' claims related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Plaintiffs, individuals and associations located in Mexico that rely on the fishing industry as a primary source of income, argued that the district court abused its discretion in making dismissal with prejudice the remedy for failing to comply with pretrial order (PTO) 60.The court held that plaintiffs' failure to comply with PTO 60 constituted a clear record of delay considering the number of opportunities the district court gave plaintiffs to either comply with PTO 60, explain why they could not do so, or show documentation of their attorneys' efforts. The court also held that the district court's explicit warnings and second chances illustrated that lesser sanctions would not serve the best interests of justice. View "Barrera v. BP, PLC" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit granted Nevada's motion to dismiss Texas' petitions for declaratory and injunctive relief in a dispute arising out of the government's struggle with nuclear waste disposal under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Texas sought equitable relief prohibiting the Department of Energy from conducting any other consent-based siting activity and ordering defendants to finish the Yucca licensure proceedings. The court held that the deadline in 42 U.S.C. 10139(c) was not jurisdictional, and thus proceeded to consider whether the continuing violations doctrine may apply to Texas' claims; applying either versions of the continuing violations doctrine, whether as a tolling mechanism or as an apparent shorthand for an exercise in statutory interpretation, Texas' claims were still untimely; the court lacked jurisdiction to consider the Department of Energy's 2017 consent-based siting activities because they were not sufficiently final under the statute; and thus Texas' claims did not satisfy the statutory requirements of timeliness or finality. View "Texas v. United States" on Justia Law

At issue in this appeal was whether a certain Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) order conflicted with a prior Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) order. The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court's order and rendered judgment in favor of PUCT and TIEC, holding that PUCT's order was not in conflict with any FERC order. The court held that FERC's orders requiring the Entergy compliance filing did not call for a retroactive reallocation of 2007 Bandwidth Payments; Entergy's compliance filing did not contain a retroactive reallocation that FERC approved in the 2015 FERC Order; the 2015 FERC Order did not retroactively reallocate 2007 Bandwidth Payments; and PUCT's Order was consistent with the 2015 FERC Order. View "Entergy Texas, Inc. v. Nelson" on Justia Law

Vendors and contractors provided materials and services in connection with an offshore mineral lease. Under the Louisiana Oil Well Lien Act, La. Rev. Stat. 9:4863(A)(1), 9:4864(A)(1), they secured liens on the lessee’s operating interest upon the commencement of labor. They timely recorded the liens. The lessee later sold “term overriding royalty interests” to OHA. In the lessee’s subsequent bankruptcy proceeding, the service providers intervened, seeking to enforce their liens on OHA’s royalty interests. The district court agreed with the bankruptcy court and dismissed their complaints, concluding that the statute that created the liens extinguished them via a safe-harbor provision. The Fifth Circuit affirmed. The safe-harbor question is one of statutory interpretation: Was OHA’s purchase of the overriding royalties a purchase of “hydrocarbons that are sold or otherwise transferred in a bona fide onerous transaction by the lessee or other person who severed or owned them” at severance? The royalties were “sold,” the transaction was “bona fide,” and the seller was a “lessee.” OHA purchased more than an interest in proceeds; it purchased an interest in the to-be-produced hydrocarbons themselves. A purchase of overriding royalties is a purchase of “hydrocarbons” under the statute, so the lienholders’ failure to provide pre-purchase notice renders their liens extinguished. View "OHA Investment Corp. v. Schlumberger Technology Corp." on Justia Law