More than 70 lawsuits have already been filed — and more are in the pipeline — in a gusher of litigation over the Gulf of Mexico oil rig disaster.
If 200-some plaintiffs lawyers have their way, the bulk of those lawsuits will be consolidated. The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation in Washington has received a motion to combine the claims into a single multidistrict case to be heard in New Orleans. On Thursday, a team of attorneys — led by the Becnel Law Firm in Reserve, La. — drafted a joint prosecution agreement, with plans to circulate it today for plaintiffs lawyers to sign.
