BP Lawyers Use Old-School Trick; Judge Not Amused

[Amimnoch]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by greatauntoftriplets (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: NPR

Back in school, did you ever fudge the spacing on a report to meet the teacher's page-length requirement? Lawyers representing oil company BP tried something similar in a recent court filing connected to the company's 2010 drilling rig accident and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier was not amused. In his ruling Monday, Barbier issued an order and then reminded BP's lawyers that their brief was supposed to be limited to 35 pages, double-spaced:

"BP's counsel filed a brief that, at first blush, appeared just within the 35-page limit. A closer study reveals that BP's counsel abused the page limit by reducing the line spacing to slightly less than double-spaced. As a result, BP exceeded the (already enlarged) page limit by roughly six pages."

"The Court should not have to waste its time policing such simple rules — particularly in a case as massive and complex as this. ... Counsel's tactic would not be appropriate for a college term paper. It certainly is not appropriate here."


Read more: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/09/16/349006089/bp-lawyers-use-old-school-trick-judge-not-amused

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Really BP? I used to think of Oil corporations as these huge, evil, money grubbing enterprises. As time has gone on since the Deepwater Horizon, I'm more and more inclined to believe that there wasn't any brilliant/evil plot behind the disaster.. just blatant, and gross incompetence. This is pathetic, and I'm glad they were caught... even if it is by a judge who seems to be totally in their pocket.

[Chakab]

1. Corporations are armoral.

They'll do anything to protect the bottom line.

That's why we need to regulate the shit out of major corporations or else they'll abuse the process all day long when they get caught fucking up.

[jberryhill]

7. .

[dixiegrrrrl]

10. *snort*

[Amimnoch]

2. BP's lawyers tried to be spacious, but the judge deemed their attempt specious. nt

[Dont call me Shirley]

3. WeareBPwecandowhateverwewantandyoulittlefolkscandonothingabouthat

Spaces are a waste of space

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. A federal judge found my opponent's brief did something similar. He simply ripped the offending

off of the back of the brief, instructed the attorney to step up, handed it to him, and stated, "I refuse to even consider that part of the argument. I hope you covered it elsewhere." It turns out, he did not. Heh.

[SunSeeker]

9. I wish this judge had done the same thing. Instead, he let BP win on the motion(s). nt

[hack89]

5. They are British - they used metric spacing!

[unblock]

8. scottish, actually. that distiction might be huge if scotland splits from the u.k.

[unblock]

6. their brief was not brief but loquacious

the gap between lines was not spacious
the judge disagreed
with their densely-writ screed
and found their typesetting audacious

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Oh, well played......

[FiveGoodMen]

12. Excellent

[greatauntoftriplets]

13. We're locking this because it doesn't conform with the LBN SOP.

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