“BP fronted the state $25 million to support the functions of our first responders and others fighting to protect our coasts because the reimbursement process can be slow,” Jindal says. “It’s important to note that this $25 million doesn’t even scratch the surface of our state’s total needs in responding to and recovering from this catastrophic oil spill. We are designating today $5 million of this total to the [AG’s office].”
“Without this essential funding it would be virtually impossible to engage in the difficult task ahead of ensuring that BP lives up to its financial obligations and responsibilities to the state of Louisiana,” says Caldwell.
Caldwell says he learned a lot about potential legal expenses during a recent visit with the former attorney general of Alaska who handled the Exxon Valdez case. “Alaska put up $35 million in 1989 in a legislative session just to get their experts, get their lawyers, working on the main cases, and we need to do that,” Caldwell says. “We need the money from the Legislature.”
His request could very well turn this regular session, which ends June 21, on its ear. Caldwell estimates Louisiana will need as much as $65 million. He could find some help in legislation being pushed by Senate President Joel Chaisson II, D-Destrehan, but not nearly enough. Senate Bill 731 would allow the AG to execute contingency-fee contracts to hire private attorneys to help the state handle its potential lawsuit, a likely necessity if Louisiana is to retain the best legal experts, much like BP is already doing.
The bill requires the AG to document why his office cannot handle the litigation in-house and calls for Caldwell to solicit at least three proposals from outside law firms. He must also receive approval from two legislative oversight committees before hiring outside counsel on contingency.
Chaisson says he initially started investigating how states such as Texas and Alabama handle contract help on legal matters. He discovered that most states offer contingency fees to private attorneys and that the better programs have strict guidelines and loads of transparency. But he never envisioned it as a mechanism to help Louisiana litigate its way through a disaster like the one it now faces. “Then lo and behold, here comes BP,” Chaisson says.
Currently, the state can pay private attorneys by the hour for their services. Chaisson’s bill would give them a cut of the funds recovered in a particular case — much like plaintiff attorneys do in standard car-accident cases or other personal injury claims.
It’s called a contingency fee because the plaintiff attorneys don’t get paid unless their clients — in this case, the state — actually recover money damages from the defendants.
The proposed law requires a contingency fee to be payable out of all sums recovered for the state by the contracting private attorney or law firm and prohibits the attorney general from entering into a contingency fee contract that provides for an aggregate contingency fee in excess of:
(1) 25% of any recovery of up to $50 million
(2) 20% of any portion between $50 million and $100 million
(3) 15% of any portion exceeding $100 million to $250 million
(4) 10% of any portion exceeding $250 million
The bill also allows reasonable expense reimbursement for the legal team.
Chaisson says BP has billions of dollars to work with, while Louisiana is facing a $3 billion budget shortfall over the next two years. “It’s going to be the largest litigation this country has ever seen, and we ought to have the same tool as [our neighboring states],” he says.
MAY 24 Blogger Robert Mann posts this entry about the Baton Rouge Chamber's recent report on Louisiana's higher education system. It's critical to economic development, and yet our system is facing a "funding crisis" with no way to resolve it, the report says. The Chamber says control of tuition and fees must be returned to the higher ed governing boards.
MAY 24 Here's a NBC33 story about Tyrann Mathieu. He has signed with the Arizona Cardinals, inking a $3 million, four-year deal. He gets a signing bonus of $265K, but gets another, larger bonus if he doesn't get cut from the team for doing drugs. The deal reportedly includes mandatory tests and meetings for the player.
MAY 24 Jarvis DeBerry posts here about the redonkulus rhetoric that would have us believe NOLA is a safe city with a murder problem. Maybe the city's crime stats don't compare with its murder stats because you can't manipulate a murder, he says: a dead body's a dead body. It just doesn't make sense, he says, and his readers agree: a poll asks if they believe the city is safe, and more than 90 percent say no.
MAY 24 Jindal administration officials announced Thursday that the privatization of public health care is going to cost a lot more than they budgeted for, the Advocate reports here. "I'm so surprised," said no one. Anywhere. The cost they're projecting now is more than $1 billion - a lot more than the $626 million budgeted for it. And, it's more than it cost the state to operate those hospitals. So why are we doing this again?
MAY 24 Blogger CB Forgotston ridicules the recent PR campaign by the state GOP in the wake of a legislative auditor's request to both major parties. The GOP (apparently unaware that the Dems got the same request) started yammering about being targeted because it had "killed" a tax increase. CB finds that laughable, but it's also pretty funny that the GOP was comparing this episode to the IRS scandal (Because the President has so much to do with our state auditor. Right?).
MAY 24 Politico details some recent fund-raising efforts by Sen. David Vitter, which have raised the question of his future political plans. This time, it is a $5,000 per head "bayou weekend" that includes "Cajun cooking" and an all-caps "alligator hunt," the story reports. Funds raised go to a super PAC that can spend money to support Vitter in federal or state races, the story points out.
MAY 24 The pink building on Royal in the quarter was sold at a sheriff's sale Thursday, this Picayune story reports. An injunction that would have halted the sale wasn't enforced because the family failed to post a $150,000 bond, the story reports. So the owner of the mortgages on the building bought it, for nearly $7 million. Now the feuding family will have to negotiate with that company to get a lease on the building that has housed their business for close to 60 years.
MAY 23 This post in Louisiana Voice tells us about a bill by a Winnsboro lege that would require all public high school students to take at least one Course Choice online class in order to graduate. (What?) Blogger Tom Aswell says it's a monument to "waste and corruption," especially in light of the problems he's exposed with the program in recent weeks. Idaho had a similar program, but voters removed it by a 2-1 margin, Aswell says.
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Just as Companies have to pay Workmens Compensation Insurance, to protect their employees, the Oil Operators should have an on-growing Environmental Super fund, to protect " OUR ENVIRONMENT ". Believe me, its not like this is not going to occur again, and again !
This should be mandatory, a legislation by our "FATCAT, (PAID IN FULL) legislators enacting a law requiring an input of money to maintain a Super Fund by every Oil Operator prior to the start-up of drilling an inland well, or/and any well off the shores of the United States, out to the boundary of America's territorial waters.....This is certainly not unrealistic,
considering the " Exxon-Valdez spill and this " BRITISH PETROLEUM. " Fiasco !