David preferring oily hay to oily beaches

Short answer: They can sue to force payment of what is owed for the event in a timely manner and to whom it is owed.

Long answer:

You can sue for damages because someone did something which hurt you. It doesn’t so much matter if they intended to do so, they did. My understanding is to be made whole, restored to the condition before the action. That isn’t always possible, so they figure the value of what was taken and replace it with money.

Also there is contractual liability. It is my understanding that part of buying a lease offshore (for hundreds of millions of dollars and a large share going into the federal treasury) involves promising to pay the cost of any damage caused in exploration, development and operations. That obligates them under federal law.

A question which gets settled by juries in these law suits is who all is involved and how much responsibility lies on each party. Part of the question is who did anything wrong? BP contracted with whomever to have Deepwater Horizon safely drill and complete the well. One of both of them contracted with Halliburton to cement the production liner in place.

Since BP is the responsible party and DH was doing the work and Halliburton was involved in operations, lawyers want to get into as many pockets as possible for their clients or to keep as many people out of their client’s pockets as possible, all depending on whom they represent.

Since lawyers will get a cut of whatever is decided, they are morally obligated to get their hands out. Lawyers are very moral about getting money.

Making people whole isn’t enough either. That just brings you back to where you were at the beginning. Punitive damages can be the real money maker. Get an angry jury and they can really stick it to whomever has the worst case or at least the worst lawyers.

People still throw fits at how Exxon didn’t pay all the punitive damages which were originally awarded in the Exxon Valdez. After they paid all expenses to cover the cost of damage to the environment, there was still a punitive damage award of billions of dollars.

They were being punished because a DUI captain ran his tanker into the state of Alaska. Exxon certainly didn’t want him running a ship under those conditions but didn’t know. The United States government which licensed the captain didn’t want him running a ship under those conditions but they didn’t know.

Even though the captain caused the disaster, he didn’t have enough money to pay anything compared to the damage done and they couldn’t sue the federal government, so Exxon was the whipping boy and an angry jury awarded punitive damages against Exxon rather than the captain.

Later judges said, nope, punishment does not fit the action. They didn’t intend to do it but should have intended to not do it, so I think they dropped punishment to a mere half a billion dollars ($500,000,000,000)–still a lot of bubble gum but not as good a cut as the lawyers were hoping on.

Did I over-answer the question? I tend to do that just as I tend to go astray on similar or related events.

One of the good things about punitive damages is that they scare people into being as careful as possible—-about being sued if not about doing things for which someone might want to sue. A corporation has neither heart to feel nor bottom to kick but they do have wallet to pick.

David for speedy restoration of Gulf of Mexico

(INFLUX of fluids

David trying to use big words

Actually, Chernobyl was not operated by big business but by big government, id est USSR. And many of the people working there were killed and their families had to move far away to avoid dying from radioactive fallout. A vast area which had provided food was placed off limits from agriculture. Their people lost confidence in the government and ultimately it contributed to the downfall of an empire.

Interestingly, the whole problem was caused by individuals working there who wondered what would happen if they drained the coolant from the nuclear reactor. I guess they were surprised when it got hot and caught on fire and destroyed the reactor and spewed radioactie particles around the world.

None of this was done for profit motive.

What you need is a proper profit/risk analysis. “This may save us X millions of dollars; it may cost us life on this planet. Too risky.”

I finally found out what caused the blowout in the first place. They had cemented a production liner and were getting ready to put in a top cement plug and leave the well for production later. They decided to replace the heavier mud in the riser which applies pressure to avoid a kick (influs of fluids such as gas and petroleum) with lighter sea water, expecting the cement and the check valves to hold the pressure.

It turned out they didn’t.

Oops