The Tort Lawyer and the BP Oil Disaster
(Corrects to assert Exxon fought an Alaska state-court damage award for 14 years, not 19 years.)
Daniel Becnel Jr., flourish dialing over a speaker phone, places a call to a solicitor for a defendant in the British Petroleum-Deepwater Horizon rig bursting and oil spill.
“This is the king of torts calling,” he says at what time he reaches the attorney’s executive assistant.
“Oh,” she says. “Then it must be Danny Becnel.”
Becnel, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses, nods appreciatively from his mahogany desk strewn through an impressive pile of legal papers. It’s from here, in a French colonial-manner office in Reserve, La., population 10,000, that he orchestrated the filing of the at the outset federal lawsuit eight days after the Apr. 20 blowout, and where he tracks the legal squadrons gathering to sue BP (BP) and its contractors with a view to claims that experts say could add up to a half-a-trillion dollars or besides. About 110 suits have been filed so far, according to Becnel, and dozens again appear to be on the way.
“So where the hell is Jimmy?” Becnel says to the abettor on the phone.
The sought-after party is in a convention, but the assistant promises a quick return call. Before hanging up, she says: “Danny, would you give me some inside scoop, because I really enjoy hearing things in front of they get to the lawyers here.”
“Now, why do you entertain an idea of I know stuff?” he asks.
She laughs: “Because you’re the undivided who has the direct-dial phone to the White House.”
As the effuse spreads, waves of lawyers have followed. Becnel, as is his fashion, is surfing out front. So far, he and partnering law firms possess filed nine federal suits—representing Louisiana commercial fishermen, a New Orleans superficies oyster restaurant, and Key West charter boat operators, among others—and they’re preparing to toothed three or four more.
Becnel, 65, is soft-spoken. In his khakis, disclose-collar shirt, and fondness for breaking out dog-eared volumes forward industrial safety, he might be mistaken for an engineering professor. In act, he has represented plaintiffs in some of the highest-profile rank actions in American history, from fen-phen diet pills and Big Tobacco to Dow Corning conscience implants and the recent Toyota (TM) sudden-acceleration cases. He demurs considered in the state of to whether he actually has a direct line to the White House, however he openly admires the President, and Bradley Becnel, one of his four children, is each advance man for the Obama Administration, helping set up Presidential visits whole over the world.
Addressing reports circulating on a spill litigation website that U.S. Navy submarines are tracking the oil spill, Becnel says it was his attorney brother, Robert Becnel, who contacted his “complete personal friend” U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus about the need for the government to monitor where the oil is going. (A Defense Dept. prolocutor says the Navy has provided skimmer boats and other equipment to the spill-containment effort but knows of no submarine involvement.)
Becnel has abundance of competition in the BP litigation stakes. The spill, says Jerrold Parker, a Bonita Springs (Fla.) counsel, may turn into “the largest disaster in American history” and is already a mass tort bonanza. A recent seminar sponsored by the Louisiana State Bar Assn. at New Orleans’ downtown Sheraton Hotel, at what one. Becnel was one of the speakers, attracted about 300 tort attorneys from encompassing the country. “Ultimately, you’re talking about thousands of lawyers reality involved,” says Richard J. Arsenault, a dean of the Louisiana injury bar who is working several cases with Becnel.
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