The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (known as “OPA 90”) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (known as “CERCLA”) are two federal environmental laws with significant effects on businesses and individuals across the nation. OPA 90 provides a remedial scheme that apportions the liability and costs of oil spills among responsible parties.
Recently, the US Fifth Circuit addressed three maritime tenets in the same case: McCorpen defense, unseaworthiness, and regulatory governance. While these issues can be rather straightforward in the typical case, the facts in Thomas v. Hercules Offshore Services, LLC (5th Cir. March 2, 2018) provided an interesting review of each. The specific issues addressed in
By the Admiralty and Maritime Team
Yesterday, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals released its decision in USA v. Don Moss, et al., 2017 WL 4273427 (5th Cir. 2017) affirming the Eastern District’s ruling that oilfield contractors cannot be held liable for criminal violations of the Outer Continental Shelf’s Lands Act (OCSLA), 43
In November 2016, the Eastern District of Louisiana again confronted the “marshland” involved in categorizing a contract as maritime or non-maritime. In In re: Crescent Energy Services, LLC, No. 15-819 (E.D. La. Nov. 7, 2016), the court held that a contract to plug and abandon a well in Louisiana waters was maritime in nature.
Given the significantly better benefits available to an injured worker who qualifies under the Longshoreman and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (“LHWCA”) compared to a state workers’ compensation scheme, attorneys for injured workers are constantly trying to fit their client into the LHWCA to maximize their potential recovery. As a result, there is a steady availability
Providing much needed clarity to an ambiguous and precedent-sparse arena of federal admiralty law, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal relied on Texas common law when recently upholding a district court’s denial of a Motion to Vacate Attachment under Supplemental Admiralty Rule B. In Malin v. Int’l Ship Repair & Drydock, Inc. v. Oceanografia
The U.S. Fifth Circuit issued a decision this week that addresses the murky question of what law applies to offshore incidents. It illustrates that the choice of law issue is not merely academic but has important real-world consequences. In this case it meant that a lawsuit for over $400,000,000 was given new life. See Petrobras
On May 26, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers launched a new website to provide the public and industry interests with nationally-issued Notices To Navigation Interests (NTNI). The new website can be found here. The new site allows users to search NTNIs by keywords, providing a new-user friendly interface. The site will keep navigation