Personal Injury Law

Do we feel bad for BP or the victims of the Deep Horizon Oil Spill?

By Brian F. LaBovick, Esq.

BP is being asked to establish a $20,000,000 fund to provide relief for the victims of the oil disaster!  Can you believe it?  $20 Billion!  That is about one tenth of the damages they have caused.  That is only one year of profit for the company.  They can pay $20 Billion like I am able to pay $20.00. 

Then to make matters so much worse, today when BP CEO Tony Hayward testified to Congress there were actually US Representatives who felt BAD FOR BP! That is correct, BAD FOR BP!  They thought that $20 Billion dollars was not fair.  They felt that the BP should not be 'FLEECED' into paying for unnecessary damages! 

I am not gonna eat Tuna Fish for the rest of my life because this company lied about their ability to handle this disaster and somehow, now that they have caused one of the greatest man made disasters in the history of the world, our own legislators FEEL BAD FOR BP? Thousands of businesses and families will forever struggle to put their lives back together because their ways of making a living has been TAKEN AWAY FROM THEM.  How do you tell someone that has supported their families with a particular industry that "you may never be able to do this again" because of the damage the oil has caused to the waters? What does the business owner tell their employees when they can no longer pay them because the oil spill has destroyed the industry as they know it and they can't support their customers?

Suggestion: We must dump these corporate lackeys on their proverbial behinds.  I used to laugh at the term 'get the bums out of Washington' but we MUST vote these people out. I don't care if they are Republican or Democrat, if you are trying to justify BPs behavior you are NOT ON MY SIDE and I consider MY SIDE, the SIDE OF THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

Congressman Joe Barton said that the fund was a "tragedy in the first proportion."

Senator John Cornyn said he "shares" Barton's concern.

Rep. Michele Bachmann said that BP shouldn't agree to be "fleeced."

Who do our elected officials think is the victim here?  It is definitely not BP.

The victims of the Deep Horizon Oil Spill are, not BP.  The family that will not be able to put food on their table or pay their bills, because of no work.  The company that will not be able to pay their employees, because they have no business to generate customers, not BP. The innocent birds and other wild life that are dying or struggling to stay alive, not BP.

Millions of lives, industries, companies and the environment will never be the same because of BP's reckless disregard of safety. We must hold BP accountable for their actions in the Deep Horizon tragedy. Establishing the fund for the victims should be the beginning of BP's efforts to repair the damage they have caused.

Full post as published by LaBovick Injury Law Blog on June 18, 2010 (boomark / email).