Law Office of Scott A. Nelson, P.C.

Oil rig accident attorneys are happy to see that Tropical Storm Bonnie only delayed the static kill procedure by seven to nine days. Bonnie fizzled out over south Florida and did not grow to be anything but a small nuisance. As it appears now, the relief wells should be in place and the oil flow permanently ceased by early August.

The static kill procedure requires pumping concrete and heavy drilling mud into the well from the top. The relief well will eventually bore into the well approximately 2.5 miles underneath the ocean floor. It is certainly a possibility that the static kill will plug the leak on its own. The relief wells will be completed, of course, even if the static kill plugs the leak.

Offshore oil rig accident lawyers need to know that the BP and Transocean oil-spill lawsuits may be combined before a judge who is not from the Gulf Coast states. Half of the twelve active federal judges in the New Orleans judicial district have removed themselves from the cases filed by fishermen, businesses and property owners and coastal businesses The judges have various conflicts tied to oil investments or with the lawyers and/or companies involved in the litigation.

Some of the federal judges in southern Alabama have recused themselves from handling the spill-damage cases. Most of the more than 150 lawsuits over the spill are proposed class actions representing potentially thousands of claims against BP and Transocean.

Both sides want to have all federal-court suits over the oil spill to hold down costs and expenses and to have consistent judicial rulings. The plaintiffs want the litigation be combined in Louisiana, where the majority of the damage has occurred.

The oil spill continues to spread across the waters southeast of Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. BP and various federal agencies continue now with their emergency response and control efforts. BP plugged one of three leakage points on May 5, but the oil continues to be gushing out at 5,000 barrels per day. Some estimate the rate could be as high as 60,000 barrels per day. This oil rig accident is not only horrible because of the death and injuries of the workers, but also the terrible environmental disaster.

Generally speaking, a person is under no duty to aid another in distress. As a matter of law, it has been held that a bystander who does not create dangerous situation is not required to help another, to become a "Good Samaritan", and to prevent injury to others. If a person has only mere knowledge of a dangerous situation, the only duty is a moral duty to warn or render aid (and no legal duty). Additionally, a person has no legal duty to protect another person from the criminal acts and activities of a third person.

However, in some situations, negligence liability may be imputed to a nonactor because of some special relationship between the defendant and the third person. These special relationships may include employer and employee (perhaps in an oil rig accident scenario), driver and passenger, owner and driver, bailor and bailee, partnership, or joint enterprise. For instance, if the party in charge of a dangerous person knew or reasonably should have known of the dangers that person posed, then the persons foreseeably exposed to such danger may be owed a duty of care.

As previously noted, in order to recover in a negligence action, the plaintiff must establish both the existence of a duty and the violation, or breach, of that duty by the defendant. Someone can breach a duty owed by acting or doing something (active negligence), or by not doing something that should have been done (passive negligence). For example, in construction accident cases, active negligence may be the dropping of scaffolding material on a worker below.

The duty owed under the particular situation is also determined by the particular situation involved. The duty owed to a foreseeable plaintiff has been held to be different from the duty owed to an unforeseeable plaintiff. Certain plaintiffs, such as rescuers, may be owed a higher degree of care than a foreseeable plaintiff.

Contact Brownsville personal injury attorney Scott Nelson if you have been injured by somebody else’s negligence and need experienced counsel.

"Negligence" has been defined by the Texas Supreme Court as the doing of that which a person of ordinary prudence would not have done under the same or similar circumstances, or the failure to do that which a person of ordinary prudence would have done under the same or similar circumstances. Negligence is a very common theory of liability included in a personal injury claim. For instance, many oil rig accident and construction accident cases include a negligence claim.

Negligence liability is based on the common law and is limited by statutory law. Additionally, the Restatement Second of Torts is an authority that is sometimes consulted when a court is determining liability for negligence. At common law, a person can be negligent for the failure to do something just as a person can be negligent for doing something.

The elements for negligence are: (1) the existence of a legal duty owed by one person to another to protect that person from injury; (2) the breach of that duty; (3) damages or injuries that are (4) proximately caused by the breach.

Whether a legal duty exists is a threshold question of law for the court to decide from the facts of the case. If there is no duty owed, there cannot be liability. To determine whether a defendant has a duty to a plaintiff, the court will consider various interrelated factors, including the risk, foreseeability, and likelihood of injury weighed against the social utility of the actor’s conduct, the magnitude of the burden of guarding against an injury, and the consequences of placing the burden on the defendant. Another factor a court considers is whether one party had superior knowledge of the risk or right to control the actor who caused the harm.

Contact Texas personal injury lawyer Scott Nelson if you are injured because of someone else’s negligence.