Oil spill aftermath: A tale of three plaintiffs
(Reuters) - The phone at Joan Strohmeyer's fishing lodge has been ringing steadily since 2010, but not many of the calls are from customers who want to go fishing. Mainly, they are from lawyers who want her to sue British oil company BP Plc.
The tidy, 62-room Lighthouse Lodge is perched near the Gulf of Mexico on Highway 23, in the marshlands between Breton Sound to the east and Bataria Bay to the west, an easy jumping off point for what used to be some of America's most prized commercial and sport fishing waters.
That was before an explosion on April 20, 2010, on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 workers and spewed oil for 87 straight days. It soaked hundreds of miles of Gulf Coast shoreline in caramel-colored oil and sent Strohmeyer's clients fleeing to less troubled waters.
Now, Strohmeyer faces a dilemma. She can sign onto a $7.8 billion settlement struck between BP and lawyers representing people who, like her, have lost money because of the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Or she can take her chances and try to strike a better deal on her own.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/03/11/us-bp-plaintiffs-idUSBRE82A05J20120311