NEW ORLEANS (Legal Newsline) – Gulf Coast residents who wanted to sue BP over the 2010 oil spill that they said prevented them from finding fish to eat have, for now, lost their effort to form a class action against the lawyers who allegedly squandered that chance.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on July 30 refused to hear the appeal of the plaintiffs who have sued several lawyers and law firms in Louisiana federal court. They wanted to form a class of individuals who relied on fishing the Gulf Coast for food and whose cases were mishandled by those lawyers.
The defendants include the firms Howard L. Nations, Nicks Law Firm, Rueb & Motta, Joseph A. Motta and Rueb Law Firm.
“While we possess ‘unfettered discretion’ to authorize the interlocutory appeal of a district court’s class-certification order, that discretion is best exercised ‘when the certification decision turns on a novel or unsettled question of law (or) is likely dispositive of the litigation,’” a three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit wrote.
“Petitioners do ‘not claim that either of those circumstances is present here.’ Instead, they wish to relitigate the district court’s fact-specific and detailed decision.”
Judge Wendy Vitter denied the motion for class certification on July 1. It was filed by 10 plaintiffs who are now represented by Block Law Firm in Thibodaux, La.
They allege they wanted to take part in the Deepwater Horizon settlement process by arguing they rely on the Gulf for food, and that the oil spill prevented them from fishing it.
They hired the defendants to file subsistence claims, but they were not made either at all or in a timely manner, they say. The lawsuit groups all of the defendants together into a single enterprise, and the plaintiffs sought class certification on their breach of contract and legal malpractice claims.
The defendants opposed, arguing the plaintiffs couldn’t prove commonality of issues.
“Based upon Plaintiffs’ own expert report, each proposed class member will need to submit individualized proof to establish their subsistence claim would have survived a field visit and corresponding investigation,” Vitter’s decision says.
“Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate that this showing can be made with class-wide proof. As such, the Court finds that individual issues surrounding Plaintiffs’ damages calculation predominate over any class-wide issues in this case.”
Vitter also ruled that the defendants must be allowed to show why each proposed class member’s subsistence claims were not processed or were denied.
“Thus, the majority of the evidence on the breach of contract claim is not capable of consideration on a class-wide basis, and will instead require consideration of individual analysis.”
Following that ruling, Vitter denied the plaintiffs’ attempt to reserve her decision that dismissed fraud claims.