SLABBED reported Judge Barbier’s rockin’ Order and Reasons in Judge Barbier rocks! Rules “claims czar not independent of BP”, including his requirement that all parties file additional briefs by Friday of this week. (Order and Reasons follow in scribd format below)
McClatchy News has a story – Mississippi AG: BP spill victims got ‘stiff-armed’ on claims – indicating Barbier’s rockin’ had AG Hood rollin’ out a call for whistleblowers:
Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood wants to hear from whistle-blowers with inside information about how the Gulf Coast Claims Facility is operating.
Hood believes GCCF administrator Ken Feinberg “stiff-armed” claimants on emergency and interim claims because they required no release of the right to sue BP and other parties responsible for the April 2010 Gulf oil catastrophe. When claimants grew desperate, Hood believes, GCCF rolled out final payments that do require waiving the right to sue.
“They’re not following the law,” Hood said. “They’re just trying to coerce people into signing these releases”…
As SLABBED has repeatedly mentioned, Hood learned all he needed to know about “waiving the right to sue” from the MID mediation program that “stiff armed” State Farm policyholder claimants in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
IMO, that lesson accounts for his current insistence that there is no relationship between the number and amount of paid claims and the integrity of the claims process!
Anyone heard a whistle blow?
(Judge Barbier’s Order and Reasons below the jump)
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Feinberg did an old insurance trick of trying to low ball people right before Christmas and denied thousands of their emergency funding to set them up for the quick check scam. Why? Because he is a crook who has lost sight of his mission to serve the people who were impacted by the oil spill. Hood is spot on with his analysis of the stiff arm used by Feinberg. I wonder if Feinberg can be sued personally for this move.
There is also an issue of land owners who had their property directly hit by oil from the BP spill. Feinberg has denied claims for all these people. The reasoning stated by the BP claims center is that “the value of your land could go up in the future”. Wait how would having to disclose to potential buyers that your land was covered in oil and solvents ever raise the value of one’s land? It will not. State law requires land owners to disclose such conditions to all potential buyers. Failure to do so is againt state law. Such disclosures will mark your land forever as a hazardous waste site and thus decrease the value of your land forever. The overall market can go up but your land will always have the label which is the death of all real estate—former hazardous waste site for sale, perfect for condo development… BP claims center tells anyone trying to file such a claim that Feinberg has ruled this is not a valid claim and if you file it BP will deny the claim. Land is directly impacted by BP oil, value of land is forever decreased and Feinberg claims BP shouldn’t pay a dime. His rules don’t follow established law.