Consumer Law

It?s a Baldwin Kind of Day

By Joe Consumer

Of all the many lawsuits surrounding the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, which killed 11 and was a subsequent environmental and health disaster, the weirdest has to be this one: Stephen Baldwin of the famous acting Baldwin brothers and recent star of I'm a Celebrity?Get Me out of Here!, has sued Kevin Costner, currently starring in the History?s channel?s blockbuster show, Hatfields and McCoys, about one of the most violent family feuds in U.S. history. 

Baldwin is alleging that Kevin ?I probably know more about oil spills than almost anyone in the world? Costner and his friend tricked him into selling his shares of a company (for far less than they were worth), which marketed oil cleanup devices to BP, unaware that BP had placed a $52 million order for it (and then never used it.)

According to testimony yesterday, ?Stephen Baldwin threatened to feed personal information about Kevin Costner to The New York Times if they couldn?t resolve their business dispute.?  Not a great way to express one's frustration, but far better than shooting a guy in the back.  (See clip below.)

Writes the Hollywood Reporter, ?Baldwin says his primary motivation wasn't money but rather the impact of the technology itself, and that even though he was involved in bankruptcy proceedings, he would have invested more. ?I could have asked my big brother,? he said, referring to fellow actor Alec Baldwin.?

Poor Alec.  His name sure get's thrown around a lot these days, especially since it's (coincidently) awfully similar to the tainted organization ALEC, which we cover often at ThePopTort ? most recently Monday.  See today?s Newark Star Ledger editorial imploring all corporate ALEC members to dump it like Johnson & Johnson just did.

The organization Republic Report, a project of United Republic, has created a spoof Tumblr site in response to a new attempt by Grover Norquist and his corporate buddies to try to counter the anti-ALEC waive, with ?I Stand With ALEC.?  Incredibly, it took Norquist about two months to get this site going. On the other hand, the spoof site is called, I Stand with Alec, not ALEC.?  I won?t try to explain it ? just go there.  And if you are tweeting about this, use the hash tag, #istandwithalec.  It?s Norquist?s, but the anti-ALEC tweeters have already pretty much taken it over.

Full post as published by ThePopTort on June 14, 2012 (boomark / email).