Alaska Beat

Anch. lawyer has advice for Gulf spill claimants

Alaska Beat never thought anything good could ever come from the Exxon Valdez disaster, and this is small consolation, but according to a long story by APRN, an Anchorage lawyer with experience in oil spill litigation says the Exxon Valdez disaster exposed inadequacies in federal maritime law. The laws governing claims of compensatory damages from such disasters weren't clearly defined at the time, and in that spill's wake, federal maritime law changed. The legislation (dubbed "OPA 90") means that today, many claims arising from the Deepwater Horizon spill (for example, those of Louisiana fishermen) may not need to enter the court system, let alone stay there for 20 years -- unless of course they signed papers limiting their ability to claim damages in order to work on the relief effort. The APRN story is very long and rather complex, so listen to much more, here.

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