Barry Barnett, Esq. (LexBlog Mexico)

May a working interest owner in an offshore oil and gas lease avoid paying a share of the cost of decommissioning a platform that the lessee used to produce from the lease?  If you had a Farmout Agreement like the one between predecessors in interest — the PIIs — of Apache Corporation and W&T Offshore,...

British Petroleum now faces a two-front litigation war. Yesterday, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation sent to the U.S. district court in New Orleans dozens of cases alleging personal injury, wrongful death, property damage, and other economic loss resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  In re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig “Deepwater Horizon” in the Gulf...

Today the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation ordered centralization of cases relating to the oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico from the offshore rig Deepwater Horizon to the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans.  U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier will oversee the sprawling MDL proceedings. The Panel’s order provides: IN RE: OIL...

Blawgletter got back this morning (around 3:00 a.m.) from our first-ever trip to Boise.  We saw a Great Many lawyers. We and they had come to watch, and some of us to present, argument about what the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation should do with big cases.  In re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig “Deepwater Horizon” in the...

This week — as vast slicks of oil fowled beaches from Louisiana to Florida — the U.S. Supreme Court held against beachfront property owners.  The fight involved the question of who owns seven miles of sand touching the Gulf of Mexico in the Florida Panhandle. The startling thing?  Four Justices voted to deem property rulings by state courts of...

The newest justice on the U.S. Supreme Court gets last choice of the 13 Circuit Justice spots.  Today the Court assigned Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor to ride herd over the Tenth Circuit, which covers Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. Former Associate Justice David Souter’s spots went to Associate Justices Stephen Breyer (First Circuit) and Samuel...

The first flag of the Republic of Texas (1836-45). Welcome, y’all, to the 201st Blawg Review. March 2 marks the 173rd anniversary of Texas Independence from Mexico. Four days before the Alamo fell, and all its defenders perished, 59 Texian delegates adopted the Texas Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos. The document included this charge against the Mexican government: It has...

  Cudd and its insurer hope to avoid Cudd’s promise to indemnify for an oilfield accident. A Master Service Agreement between Sonat Exploration and Cudd Pressure Control contemplated that Cudd would provide oilfield services to Sonat in several states, including Louisiana, New Mexico, and Texas.  Th MSA required Cudd to indemnify Sonat for claims that Cudd employees...

A Kerr-McGee platform in the Gulf of Mexico.  Hurricane Ike should reach it any day now. The Tenth Circuit held today that “the transfer of information between a federal employee and a state government auditor who is under a duty of confidentiality is not a public disclosure and therefore does not deprive the courts of...

Blawgletter had the honor last week of contributing to an amicus brief in Bridge v. Phoenix Bond & Indemnity Co., No. 07-210 (U.S.), which the Court will hear April 14.  The issue?  “Whether reliance is a required element of a RICO claim predicated on mail fraud and, if it is, whether that reliance must be...