Brent Coon calls BP oil spill settlement agreement a ‘buzzard,’ wants clients to opt-out

BEAUMONT – One of Beaumont’s best known attorneys, Brent Coon, recently asked a federal judge to extend the BP oil spill settlement deadline and allow his clients to possibly opt-out.

For nearly five years, a federal court in New Orleans has handled the mass litigation resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

On May 2, 2012, the court preliminarily approved the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Economic and Property Damages Settlement Agreement and conditionally certified the class for settlement purposes.

The deadline to opt-out of settlement already has passed.

Court records show that on April 16, Coon, who represents about 10,000 class members, filed a motion to amend the class action settlement notice, requesting that the court “allow disenfranchised members of the class a second opportunity to opt-out and have their day in court.”

“The Deepwater Horizon Economic and Property Damages Settlement Agreement was presented as a butterfly, but turned out to be a buzzard,” states Coon’s class memorandum in support of the motion.

Coon goes on to call the track record for payments to clients “abysmal” and asserts BP is seeking to “claw back monies from the few business claimants that have been already paid.”

“The buzzard that the (Deepwater Horizon Economic Claims Center) has become is eating the carcasses of injured Gulf Coast residents one by one, as they slowly give up hope of ever being compensated for their losses,” Coon wrote.

“Brent Coon & Associates files the Motion on behalf of our clients who are not getting an opportunity to have their claims fairly evaluated. We ask that the Court order a re-notice of the Class and give claimants an opportunity to opt-out of the Class now that’s its true stripes have been shown.”

U.S. District Court for Eastern Louisiana, case No. 2:10-md-02179-CJB-SS.