Property Insurance Coverage Law Blog : Florida Insurance Lawyer & Attorney : Merlin Law Group Law Firm : Tampa, Houston, Coral Gables, Gulfport

I am writing this while flying home from Des Moines, Iowa, on a case filed in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. Kevin Healey is working on this case with me and just remarked how much he enjoys meeting so many different and interesting people in our line of work. I feel the same way. Judge Senter was one of those interesting people.

The first time I saw him in Court, I was surprised to see that he was in a wheelchair. Polio struck him as a teenager. It did not slow him down, and I felt a little bit in awe that he seemed to have so much energy. He was a wise judge who had extraordinary intellectual capacity and a sense of practical understanding based upon life experiences.

Watching the sun set into a glorious fired sky, I am thinking fondly about my friends from Mississippi and Judge Senter’s wise and academic reasoning. Wise judges don't go out in a blaze of glory and are often overlooked by the communities they serve. They are a bedrock of our democracy and should always hold a seat of honor for the difficult and important role they play in society.

In A Judge That Gets It, I remarked:

A federal judge is appointed for life. Like Admirals and Generals of our military and Cabinet-level Secretaries and their Deputies, they are on the Board of Directors of the United States of America. They voluntarily take on the job of making certain that this Land of the Free and Home of the Brave is more than just an ideal we have ingrained into our souls. They are the keepers of a governmental system of the best and longest running democracy to ever exist.

God bless Judge Senter and all of our jurists who serve us with dedication to nothing except justice for all.

Gene Taylor fought for his constituency and policyholders, as noted in Are We Doomed To Repeat This Again?

"I met with Gene Taylor, a United States Representative from Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, in early 2007 regarding this problem. Hurricane Katrina destroyed his home and those of friends. He understood that coastal policyholders with complete destruction were only getting the flood damage paid for under the coverage purchased through the National Flood Program. Despite homes miles inland being paid significant benefits under their all risk coverage from wind damage, coastal insureds suffering from a combination of wind and flood were generally getting paid pennies on the dollar for wind related damage. He and other coastal Representatives believe that the only solution available is to make available a policy that covers both the water and wind perils which occur during a hurricane."

Four months after I wrote that post, Hurricane Ike slammed into the Bolivar Peninsula. The same insurance scenario was repeated. It will happen again. With Taylor's defeat, the most vocal federal level advocate for insurance reform benefiting the property insurance policyholder has been silenced.

Things never stay the same. We all end up saying "good bye" at points in our life. I will always have fond memories of Gene Taylor and his dedication as a congressman to help those along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Sometimes, noble quests are simply impossible dreams, but hopefully, he will continue the fight at a grassroots level. Have a great weekend!

The reason why it is important to go to seminars is get an edge and tips about your practice. I will go over cases and what the judges say. Still, the value of attending is to hear the practical analysis and how these cases can be used by adjusters, public adjusters, attorneys and others in the practice of their respective trades.

Here are the cases and the outline. I will be giving a similar speech in Houston at the Windstorm Conference, January 24-27. 2011. I promise that if you attend, you will come away with some practical tips you can use to help your clients--whether insurers or policyholders.
 

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill could be leaking at a rate of 25,000 barrels a day, five times the government's current estimate, industry experts say.

Basing their calculations on government data and standard industry measurement tools, the experts said the Gulf spill may already rival the historic 1969 Santa Barbara, Calif., and 1989 Exxon Valdez disasters.

Ian MacDonald, professor of oceanography at Florida State University who specializes in tracking ocean oil seeps from satellite imagery, said there may already be more than 9 million gallons of oil floating in the Gulf now, based on his estimate of a 25,000 barrel-a-day leak rate. That's compared to 12 million gallons spilled in the Valdez accident.

Interior Department officials said it may take 90 days to cap the leaking well. If the 25,000 barrels a day is accurate and it leaks for 90 days, that's 2.25 million barrels or 94.5 million gallons.

Mr. MacDonald and his colleagues at the Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science Department have worked jointly with National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the past on oil spill tracking, and have shared their estimates with NOAA scientists. He said the NOAA scientists didn't dispute the calculations.

A NOAA spokeswoman said the government estimate of 5,000 barrels a day leaking from the BP PLC deep sea well was based on collaborative assessments produced by BP, NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard. NOAA scientists weren't immediately available to comment.

The 5,000-barrel figure was first announced late Wednesday and marked a five-fold increase from the previous estimate. News of the higher estimate ratcheted up the pressure on officials to take more-aggressive steps to contain the spill and heightened concerns about potential environmental damage and disruption to the Gulf Coast economy.

Climate Now called this an Oilpocalypse Now! That blog provides a detailed report on the serious issues confronting Gulf Coast states.

In Safety Device Questioned in '04, the Wall Street Journal also noted that safety devices could have been better:

Some newer rigs have blowout preventers with two separate pairs of shear rams—providing an added safeguard in case one shear malfunctions or hits an obstruction in the pipe. The Deepwater Horizon had a single pair of shear rams.

The Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which regulates offshore drilling, questioned whether shear rams were strong enough to shear through a pipe.

In two offshore incidents in 2001, the rams didn't work as expected. The agency issued new rules in 2003 instructing the oil industry to make sure the rams would work reliably.

In 2004, a study commissioned by the MMS raised significant questions about the ability of rams to cut through the stronger pipes used in deep-water drilling. Those thicker pipes—as well as the shear rams—must withstand the enormous pressures found at 5,000 feet below sea level.

The study noted there was no agreement on how to determine if the sheer rams would work properly in deep-water conditions. Only three of 14 newly build rigs had blowout preventers that were able to squeeze off and cut the pipe at the water pressure likely to be experienced at the equipment's maximum water depth, the study noted. (emphasis added)

I will be flying over the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston on Hurricane Ike litigation matters as many are reading this post. I am certain that the spill will be even more unbelievable to see than this past Thursday when I last flew over the disaster. The Gulf Coast needs a reprieve from these heartbreaks. The recent post in Slabbed, “We interrupt this interruption of our regularly scheduled disaster blogging to report that levees have failed above Memphis” – said the Editilla this soggy Sunday morning, is sadly accurate of what we have been experiencing lately.

Yesterday, Time Magazine reported in an article, Gulf Oil Spill Swiftly Balloons, Could Move East, that:

The Coast Guard conceded Saturday that it's nearly impossible to know how much oil has gushed since the April 20 rig explosion, after saying earlier it was at least 1.6 million gallons....Even at that rate, the spill should eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident as the worst U.S. oil disaster in history within about a week. But a growing number of experts warned that the situation may already be much worse.

The oil slick over the water's surface appeared to triple in size over the past two days, which could indicate an increase in the rate that oil is spewing from the well, according to one analysis of images collected from satellites and reviewed by the University of Miami. While it's hard to judge the volume of oil by satellite because of depth, it does show an indication of change in growth, experts said.

"The spill and the spreading is getting so much faster and expanding much quicker than they estimated," said Hans Graber, executive director of the university's Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing. "Clearly, in the last couple of days, there was a big change in the size." Florida State University oceanography professor Ian R. MacDonald said his examination of Coast Guard charts and satellite images indicated that 8 million to 9 million gallons had already spilled by April 28.

Doug Suttles, BP's chief operating officer for exploration and production, said it was impossible to know just how much oil was gushing from the well, but said the company and federal officials were preparing for the worst-case scenario. Oil industry experts and officials are reluctant to describe what, exactly, a worst-case scenario would look like — but if the oil gets into the Gulf Stream and carries it to the beaches of Florida, it stands to be an environmental and economic disaster of epic proportions.

The Deepwater Horizon well is at the end of one branch of the Gulf Stream, the famed warm-water current that flows from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Atlantic. Several experts said that if the oil enters the stream, it would flow around the southern tip of Florida and up the eastern seaboard.

"It will be on the East Coast of Florida in almost no time," Graber said. "I don't think we can prevent that. It's more of a question of when rather than if."

Our firm will file our first BP Oil spill lawsuit tomorrow morning. We will do so with our long term co-counsel in the panhandle of Florida, Keefe, Anchors, Gordon & Moyle, P.A. Michelle Anchors is proudly a fervent environmentalist, and she wrote the following in her Blog:

Those of us who grew up on the Emerald Coast have been around the block a few times watching the Weather Channel and waiting to see where the hurricane would land. Most of us have never watched an oil slick to see whether and when it would land. Waiting for a hurricane seemed to be a lot more fun. Maybe we would get out of school. Maybe the electricity would go out. Maybe the wind would bring good waves for the surfers. And now that I represent clients who have to fight their insurance companies after a hurricane, maybe I would even get some business. But waiting for the oil spill of the Deepwater Horizon to reach our coast is gut wrenching. I don’t want the business.

During the last few days, I have received calls from some of my clients asking if we can help them prepare for this potential disaster. Not to be unnecessarily alarmist, but the potential consequences are grave. Emotionally, environmentally, and economically, Northwest Florida has everything to lose. So we have mustered our troops and our resources and we are going to fight BP, who could have and should have taken more actions to prevent this devastating event. This is not like a hurricane that the forces of Mother Nature unleashes without any human or corporate control. This is an oil company that apparently did not take the precautions necessary to protect us all – this is an underwater Chernobyl.

With oil coming ashore, there will be massive income and loss of use claims. Those have already started and will only increase as the oil permeates a community. As a result, Merlin Law Group hired an environmental attorney who has extensive experience with pollution litigation. We also retained a consultant who managed claims from the oil industry's side following the Exxon Valdez disaster. We also hired Trial Exhibits, which photographed and documented damage for a oil transport company following a 1993 oil spill off St. Petersburg and Clearwater. We will do our best to help and serve our clients. I look forward to working with Michelle Anchors and others as we work through this unprecedented catastrophe.

Oil spills, clean up and recovery are topics of discussion at my family gatherings. My father helped start the Marine Spill Response Corporation operations in the Gulf Coast at Lake Charles, Louisiana. After his retirement there, he has taught oil spill clean up and recovery for the State of Louisiana and throughout the Gulf Coast. I am certain that many of the people trying their hardest to stop the spread of this spill have been taught by him. There is only so much that can be done if the flow of oil is not contained.

Underwater robots failed to activate a cutoff valve on the ocean floor to stop the leak. BP is hoping a plan to cover the well with a steel cap and capture the leaking oil will avert an environmental disaster. But that will take four weeks, and by then more than 150,000 barrels could have spilled. If the steel cap does not work, BP will have to rely on stemming the flow by drilling a relief well, which would take two to three months. If it takes that long, the spill could be even larger than the 258,000 barrels leaked in 1989 by the Exxon Valdez.

Estimates of the damage are already in the billions. In BP Vows to Pay All Gulf Coast Oil Spill Damage Claims, the National Law Journal reported:

BP Plc will compensate all those affected by an oil spill from one of its wells in the Gulf of Mexico, its Chief Executive said, accepting the disaster could hit plans to open new areas off the U.S. coast to drilling.

"We are taking full responsibility for the spill and we will clean it up and where people can present legitimate claims for damages we will honour them. We are going to be very, very aggressive in all of that," Tony Hayward told Reuters in an interview on Friday.
...

The cost to the fishing industry in Louisiana could be $2.5 billion while the impact on tourism along Florida's Paradise coast could be $3 billion, Neil McMahon, analyst at investment firm Bernstein, said in a research note on Friday.

On the way to Houston on Thursday morning, I was amazed to look out the window of our plane and see the size of the oil spill. As far as I could see, oil was there. This will not end anytime soon. There will be significant claims, losses and litigation involving this tragic event.