With the Deepwater Horizon oil spill approaching its four-year anniversary in April, the multidistrict litigation stemming from the disaster appears to have no end in sight. [See timeline chart.] After a series of disappointing rulings, Texas plaintiffs lawyer Brent Coon is organizing a meeting with fellow plaintiffs counsel in an effort to extract some of their cases from what he said is a slow-moving MDL. Coon, founder of Brent Coon & Associates, said he would like to move about three-fourths of his clients’ 10,000 cases “back to their home courts.”
Louisiana Attorney General James D. “Buddy” Caldwell also has launched efforts to remove his clients’ cases from the MDL, which is pending before U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier in the Eastern District of Louisiana.
