By TRAVIS LOLLER and MICHAEL PHILLIS (Associated Press)
When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 134 million gallons of crude oil gushed into the sea over the next three months. Tens of thousands of regular people were hired to help clean up the environmental damage caused by the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
These workers were exposed to crude oil and the chemical dispersant Corexit while collecting tar balls along the shore, placing booms from fishing boats to absorb oil slicks, and saving birds covered in oil.
Noticing that some members of the cleanup crews had likely become sick, BP agreed to a medical claims settlement two years after the 2010 disaster. Experts applauded it as “an extraordinary accomplishment” that would fairly compensate workers with minimal trouble.
However, things didn't turn out as expected.
The outcome has fallen significantly short of expectations, leaving many workers who claimed lasting health effects stranded with little or no compensation.
Through the settlement, BP has paid a small fraction of $67 million to ill workers and coastal residents, compared to the billions spent on reimbursing for economic and environmental harm. The vast majority — 79% — received no more than $1,300 each.Many workers who claimed to have become ill from the spill were compelled to take legal action — and they have fared even worse. Nearly all of about 4,800 lawsuits seeking compensation for health issues have been dismissed.
Attorneys familiar with the cases state they are unaware of any that have gone to trial and know of only one that has been settled. John Maas, a former boat captain, received $110,000 from BP for his lung ailments in 2022, as per a confidential copy of the settlement.
The repeated failures illustrate how incredibly challenging it is to prove in court that a particular illness is caused by chemical exposure, even when those chemicals are generally known to cause illness.
An investigation by the Associated Press, which involved numerous interviews with cleanup workers, attorneys, and experts, as well as a review of extensive court documents, revealed:
— A single altered word in the settlement prevented thousands of workers from receiving anything beyond the minimum of $1,300 each. To receive more, they had to file individual lawsuits — a course of action that almost always led to defeat.
— The majority of federal judges hearing those cases demanded a level of evidence linking chemical exposure to worker illnesses that the leading government epidemiologist studying the spill believes is likely nearly impossible to achieve.
— Large law firms representing dozens or even thousands of workers failed their clients in various ways. After BP accused one firm of fabricating medical claims, its cases were dismissed in large numbers.
Robin Greenwald, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys who negotiated the settlement, mentioned that even her firm has not been able to succeed with a single medical case against BP.
“I wanted people to have their day in court and they win or lose at trial,” stated Greenwald, a former federal environmental prosecutor. “Let a jury decide. … But they weren’t even given the chance to do that.”
BP chose not to provide a comment for this article, mentioning ongoing legal action 14 years after the spill.
BECOMING ILL
Following the blast on April 20, 2010, the spill was remarkable. A camera broadcasted the rupture on cable news, showing the world in real time gushing oil that wouldn’t stop. Oil floated on the Gulf and washed ashore, covering plants, birds, and other animals.
To disperse oil, approximately 1.8 million gallons of Corexit were released from planes and sprayed from boats — significantly more than in previous U.S. oil spills.
The manufacturer stated it was safer than dish soap. However, laboratory studies on human tissue and animals have shown Corexit can harm cells that protect the airways and cause scarring that narrows breathing tubes, according to Dr. Veena Antony, a University of Alabama professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine
who has researched Corexit’s impact on lung tissue. Over time, she mentioned, the process can make it increasingly difficult to breathe. “I genuinely believe that there was harm done and we didn’t realize the harm was being done — and now people are suffering,” stated Antony, who testified as an expert witness in one suit against BP. “I would not, at the present time, put my hand even in Corexit without wearing double gloves.”
The current producer of Corexit, ChampionX, stated the dispersant was pre-approved by the government for use on oil spills and the manufacturer had no role in deciding when or how to spray it.
Oil itself has long been known to cause illness. One of its toxic components is
, which can cause conditions ranging from skin irritation to cancer. benzeneBut now researchers, including Dale Sandler at the National Institutes of Health, are finding that spill workers exposed to amounts of oil assumed safe have suffered from dizziness, nausea,
respiratory problems heart attacks and “The exposures on average were still pretty low,” stated Sandler, an epidemiologist leading the GuLFSTUDY, a major effort to quantify workers’ exposure and track health woes over years. “What surprised us is that we did see a.
wide range of health effects that were associated with these exposures.” Sandler mentioned the study is the largest ever of an oil spill and is ongoing. “We’re looking at long-term risks like diabetes, cancer incidence,” she mentioned.
What researchers have found so far is echoed by other studies, including one involving about 3,500 Coast Guard responders. The responders who reported breathing oil fumes
were 40% to 50% more likely to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease-like symptoms and sinus problems compared to those who said they didn’t breathe fumes. And responders who reported exposure to both oil and Corexit were more than twice as likely to suffer shortness of breath. A PROMISING SETTLEMENT
Proving to a court that a specific person’s illness was likely caused by their exposure to oil or Corexit can be difficult.
Yet the settlement for medical claims was supposed to make it easier for workers: BP would agree exposure to the spill could cause a host of
known health issues — and workers suffering from them could file claims for payment. Initially, attorneys advocating for the settlement said it could help as many as 200,000 possibly injured workers and residents. The agreement also involved $105 million from BP for local health programs and free health checkups for exposed workers every three years for 21 years.
But things quickly went wrong.
The third-party company hired to manage claims, Garretson Resolution Group, initially denied 78% of about 37,000 claims. Even after many were resubmitted, around 36% were still denied, and claimants got nothing.
Greenwald was especially frustrated that her clients’ claims were repeatedly considered inadequate. “We had many meetings with Garretson’s team to try to loosen them up from their strict interpretation and focus on inadequacies,” she said. “We knew the claim form clearly. We discussed it.”
Matthew Garretson, founder of Garretson Resolution Group, defended his claims handling in an email, saying, “it was the process the parties agreed upon and we had to administer the settlement exactly in the way the parties’ Settlement Agreement mandated.” The company was paid around $115 million to $120 million for managing claims and for the outreach program and medical checkup effort as of 2018, he said.
There was a bigger issue.
At the most basic level, workers could submit sworn statements confirming their medical issues and receive $1,300 — and residents could receive $900. About 18,000 people received that amount.
Those with long-term illnesses who had evidence from medical tests could receive up to $60,700, or even more if they had been hospitalized.
However, few people had that evidence. Forty out of about 23,000 with approved claims received the maximum award — less than 0.2%.
Many people didn't have health insurance or easy access to a doctor and the required medical tests — a problem U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier, who approved the settlement, acknowledged in a hearing.
“Speaking for south Louisiana, I know — you’re dealing with people who are probably at the lower end of the economic scale. Most of these people, I feel sure, likely have no health insurance,” he said.
Even when people did seek medical attention, doctors unfamiliar with treating chemical exposures often didn't link illnesses to a patient’s cleanup work in medical records, according to Greenwald.
THE NATIONS CLIENTS
The Nations Law Firm, based in Houston, represented thousands of workers like Paul Loup IV, who helped clean an oil-contaminated beach in Pascagoula, Mississippi for several months.
Loup, 68, says he now has chronic respiratory issues, making it hard to stand or speak for long periods. He left his job as a procurement manager because it involved too much travel.
The firm had wanted to help clients receive more than the settlement’s $1,300 minimum, so it developed a plan to obtain necessary medical evidence.
It was an assembly line. Out-of-state nurse practitioners who were paid $20 per plaintiff entered medical histories based on information the law firm — not a doctor — provided. Firm-designed forms listed illnesses that paid more under the settlement — and doctors could simply circle them. The forms included a statement linking a patient’s illness to oil spill work — with a line for the doctor to sign. Doctors didn’t keep their own patient records.
Even though this might seem questionable, the founder of the firm, Howard Nations, explained in an interview that he met with claims administrator Garretson to try to create an acceptable process.
Garretson turned down the claims — not because of the process, but because of a deadline.
THE DEADLINE AND A SWITCHED WORD
The settlement was meant to make it easy to get money for illnesses that appeared quickly after exposure to crude oil. People with diseases that might show up years later, such as cancer, would have to file individual federal lawsuits.
Initial settlement drafts described this second group as people with a disease that “shows signs” after April 16, 2012. However, a later draft changed the word “shows signs” to “diagnosed.”
In 2014, BP used that change to argue that anyone diagnosed after the deadline couldn't get compensation for a long-term illness through the settlement, regardless of when they first got sick. Instead, they would have to sue individually to get paid.
Judge Barbier said that's not what he thought the settlement he approved would do.
“It's quite odd that the court would approve a settlement, a class settlement that really doesn’t resolve thousands of claims and requires them to file another lawsuit,” Barbier said at a 2014 hearing. “I mean, it doesn’t sound like much of a settlement.”
BP attorneys said any other interpretation would invite fraud, allowing opportunistic law firms to pay for a medical diagnosis after the deadline to get a settlement claims payout. They also said the word change was requested by the workers’ own attorneys, and Stephen Herman, co-lead counsel for plaintiffs’ attorneys, testified they didn’t recall how it happened.
Despite his doubts, Barbier said he had to follow the settlement language.
His ruling pushed thousands of workers out of the relatively easy administrative claims process into federal courts throughout the South.
THE FEDERAL LAWSUITS
The ruling was devastating for Nations clients who had no choice but to file federal lawsuits.
After BP attorneys claimed in Mississippi federal court that the firm fabricated medical diagnoses, Nations agreed to drop its cases by the dozens. In an interview, Nations did not deny BP’s allegations but said the cases were unwinnable without an adequate expert witness.
Loup, a former beach cleanup worker, said he didn’t know until informed by a reporter last year that his case had been dismissed years earlier. “I call (Nations) every six months or so … and they’ve just said it’s going to take some time,” he said.
Another Nations client was Jeff Herring, the deckhand of Maas, the boat captain believed to be the only person whose case reached a settlement.
When their boat was sprayed with Corexit, Herring started throwing up so badly an ambulance was called to pick him up. Although released from the hospital after a few days, he developed chronic sinus and respiratory problems, according to his lawsuit.
Months later, a doctor at an oil spill medical station referred him to a specialist, and he was hospitalized again, said Herring, now 39. An X-ray found spots on his lungs, and he was supposed to go to New Orleans for further testing but never did.
He said he couldn't stay in the hospital for two more weeks because he needed to go back to work, even though he didn't have insurance and the $8,000 he received through claims was not enough to cover his hospital bills.
He said his lawsuit, along with 235 others, was dismissed in 2020, but he wasn't informed about it.
Howard Nations stated that the firm kept clients updated on their cases, and despite the dismissal of individual suits, he plans to present new arguments to Judge Barbier.
Other law firms encountered a different obstacle:
Workers filing individual lawsuits have to prove they were exposed to enough oil or dispersant to likely cause their illness.
The workers’ experts relied on studies, such as those from the National Institutes of Health and the Coast Guard, that found people exposed to oil and Corexit were more likely to develop certain illnesses.
However, BP’s experts insisted that workers needed to prove exactly how much oil and dispersant they had inhaled or ingested and that it was enough to cause their sickness.
According to Greenwald, the attorney who helped create the settlement, meeting such a standard is nearly impossible, as it's hard for a person to testify about the specifics of their exposure.
Most judges have sided with BP, rejecting workers’ experts and effectively ending the cases.
Sandler, the NIH epidemiologist, expressed doubt that the evidence presented would meet the court's standards for what constitutes evidence.
It can also be challenging to find an expert witness who knows the science but doesn’t have a conflict of interest through work with the oil industry.
The Falcon Law Firm brought on Jerald Cook, a retired Navy physician trained in occupational and environmental medicine, as an expert on numerous cases, but he was consistently rejected by judges as BP questioned his professional history and work.
During a deposition, a BP attorney asked Cook if his report didn't adequately consider evidence opposing his conclusions, to which Cook responded affirmatively.
He declined to comment, and Falcon did not respond to requests for comment.
Some law firms that handled hundreds of cases struggled under the pressure, asking judges for more time so their overwhelmed experts could produce reports.
IT'S NOT OVER YET
The Downs Law Group, which lost hundreds of cases against BP, is appealing in the 5th and the 11th U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals, hoping for a ruling that federal district judges set an impossibly high burden of proof needed for toxic exposure cases. One judge suggested that the Supreme Court should address the issue.
Jason Clark, an attorney at Downs, stated that the broader implications of the case extend beyond the BP oil spill, and if the burden of proof is too high, many exposed individuals will not receive justice.
Meanwhile, Downs is speaking to many people who want to sue for diseases like cancer that appeared years after the spill, according to Clark.
Sandler, the NIH epidemiologist, mentioned that most judges require strong evidence, making it hard for people to win their cases.
"At the end of the day, did the oil spill cause illnesses? Yes," Sandler stated. "However, courts may see this differently, but from a public health perspective, yes, the oil spill made people sick."
The Associated Press is supported by the Walton Family Foundation for water and environmental policy coverage. The AP is responsible for all content. For all environmental coverage, visit
https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
Many regular people who helped clean up after the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico claim they became ill. A settlement was meant to help them, but it didn't work out as expected. Most received only the minimum compensation and had to file individual lawsuits for more. According to attorneys, only one person has received a settlement after suing, and that required extraordinary luck and effort. Plaintiff experts have been dismissed by judges, BP has contested every case, and lawyers at times have represented their clients poorly. The whole process has left those who responded to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history in a difficult situation.
Sandler, the NIH epidemiologist, said the high burden of proof demanded by most judges means “people can’t win.”
“I think at the end of the day, did the oil from the oil spill make people sick? Yes,” Sandler said. “Now, courts may view this from a very different lens, but from a public health standpoint — yes, the oil spill made people sick.”
___
The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
