Sunday, November 3, 2013

Appeals court to review approval of BP settlement

A year ago, lawyers for BP and Gulf Coast residents and businesses took turns urging a federal judge to approve their settlement for compensating victims of the company's massive 2010 oil spill.

On Monday, however, the one-time allies will be at odds when an appeals court hears objections to the multibillion-dollar deal. That's because several months after U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier approved the settlement, BP started complaining that the judge and court-appointed claims administrator were misinterpreting it. The London-based oil giant is worried it could be forced to pay billions of dollars more for bogus or inflated claims by businesses.

Plaintiffs' attorneys who brokered the deal want the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the class-action settlement.

As of Friday, payments have been made to more than 38,000 people and businesses for an estimated $3.7 billion. Tens of thousands more could file claims in the coming months.

The settlement doesn't have a cap, but BP initially estimated that it would pay roughly $7.8 billion to resolve the claims. Later, as it started to challenge the business payouts, the company said it no longer could give a reliable estimate for how much the deal will cost.

German Court Begins Hearing Afghan Airstrike Case


A court in Germany has begun hearing a civil case brought by relatives of some of the 91 Afghans killed in a NATO airstrike four years ago.

Bonn regional court spokesman Philipp Prietze said Wednesday that the court reviewed video recorded by two U.S. fighter jets involved in the airstrike in the Afghan province of Kunduz on Sept. 4, 2009.

The strike was ordered by a German colonel fearful that insurgents would use two stolen fuel tankers to attack his troops.

Germany paid $5,000 each to victims' families, but some are seeking additional compensation. Most of the dead were civilians.

Separately, Germany said it would offer refuge to 182 Afghan translators and drivers who could face persecution after Western troops leave Afghanistan because they worked for the German military.

Friday, October 25, 2013

Meet Our Founder - Cowan Law Group

Josef Cowan founded our firm over 20 years ago.  The following are some questions and answers that discuss his unique qualities and why so many individuals and businesses trust our firm with their legal and business needs.

Q.    Why did you become a lawyer?

A.    I’m the youngest of 6 kids raised by a single mother.  We didn’t have much money, so I started working in the construction industry at a very young age.  In fact, I started a construction business when I was 17 years old, and that company is still in existence and has over 400 employees.  The construction industry involves a huge number of legal issues in a wide variety of different areas.  I always found the legal issues fascinating and believed that a solid understanding of the law and ability to resolve complex issues is a huge advantage in business.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Calif. court: Spanking with wooden spoon not abuse

A state appeals court on Tuesday tossed out child abuse findings against a frustrated Northern California mother who spanked her 12-year-old daughter hard enough with a wooden spoon to cause bruising.

The 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose reversed the child abuse determination made by the Santa Clara County Department of Social Services. Social workers waned to report Vernica Gonzalez to the state Department of Justice's child abuse database with a "substantiated" abuse determination. That determination was upheld by a trial court judge.

The appeals court said the spanking came close to abuse, but that social workers and the lower court judge failed to consider the family's entire circumstances.

Gonzalez and her husband testified that other forms of punishment such as groundings and taking away her phone had failed to persuade their 12-year-old daughter to do her schoolwork and avoid gang culture. The parents said that other family members had testified that spankings in the household were a rarity.

The appeals court said the mother's growing frustration with her daughter's behavior and her intention not to inflict harm in the April 2010 spanking weighed heavily in its ruling.

Calif. court: Spanking with wooden spoon not abuse

A state appeals court on Tuesday tossed out child abuse findings against a frustrated Northern California mother who spanked her 12-year-old daughter hard enough with a wooden spoon to cause bruising.

The 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose reversed the child abuse determination made by the Santa Clara County Department of Social Services. Social workers waned to report Vernica Gonzalez to the state Department of Justice's child abuse database with a "substantiated" abuse determination. That determination was upheld by a trial court judge.

The appeals court said the spanking came close to abuse, but that social workers and the lower court judge failed to consider the family's entire circumstances.

Gonzalez and her husband testified that other forms of punishment such as groundings and taking away her phone had failed to persuade their 12-year-old daughter to do her schoolwork and avoid gang culture. The parents said that other family members had testified that spankings in the household were a rarity.

The appeals court said the mother's growing frustration with her daughter's behavior and her intention not to inflict harm in the April 2010 spanking weighed heavily in its ruling.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

PG&E starts pipeline shutdown under court order

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. says it will comply with a judge's order and shut down a natural gas pipeline after safety issues were raised.

The utility said Sunday it believes the pipeline is safe despite an engineer's email questioning the safety of the 83-year-old line's welds. PG&E said it could take until Tuesday to safely shut down the line and seamlessly switch its customers to another line.

A judge ordered the line shut down after San Carlos city officials discovered the email and declared a "state of emergency."

The email said PG&E's records incorrectly show the line containing a newer, more reliable weld than it actually has.

PG&E said state-of-the-art tests show the line is safe and that it was shutting the line only because of the court order.

Appeals court moves BP forward in settlement dispute

The April 2010 blowout of BP's Macondo well off the Louisiana coast triggered an explosion that killed 11 workers on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and led to millions of gallons of oil spilling into the Gulf. Shortly after the disaster, BP agreed to create a $20 billion compensation fund that was administered at first by the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, led by attorney Kenneth Feinberg.

BP argued that Barbier and court-appointed claims administrator Patrick Juneau misinterpreted terms of the settlement. Plaintiffs' lawyers countered that BP undervalued the settlement and underestimated how many claimants would qualify for payments.

In the panel's majority opinion, Judge Edith Brown Clement said BP has consistently argued that the settlement's complex formula for compensating businesses was intended to cover "real economic losses, not artificial losses that appear only from the timing of cash flows."

"The interests of individuals who may be reaping windfall recoveries because of an inappropriate interpretation of the Settlement Agreement and those who could never have recovered in individual suits for failure to show causation are not outweighed by the potential loss to a company and its public shareholders of hundreds of millions of dollars of unrecoverable awards," Clement wrote.

Judge Leslie Southwick wrote a concurring opinion. Judge James Dennis wrote a partial dissent, largely disagreeing with the other two.

"Because BP has not satisfied its heavy burden of showing that a change in circumstances or law warranted the modifications it sought, the district court correctly affirmed the Administrator's decision rejecting BP's argument and actions to modify the agreement," Dennis wrote.