Fla. Officers File Suit Against Oil Company For Lost Wages

Lawsuits against BP alleging damages from the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill were filed in Leon County on Friday on behalf of several members of the Panama City Beach Police Department.

Nov. 1, 2011

3 min read

Nov. 01--PANAMA CITY BEACH -- Lawsuits against BP alleging damages from the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill were filed in Leon County on Friday on behalf of several members of the Panama City Beach Police Department.

The suits, brought by Sgt. Clayton Jordan and five other PCBPD officers, are the first of their kind to be filed in state court, according to Tom Adams one of three attorneys representing the officers. The officers are suing BP, and in some instances Halliburton, for damages incurred by the officers when the city lost tourism revenue in the 2010 season.

"We're just trying to find out who will come to the table and be reasonable with these officers," Adams said.

Florida has two laws similar to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the Florida Water Quality Assurance Act and the Florida Pollutant Discharge Prevention and Control Act, that the officers claim allows them to sue for damages in state court, Adams said. By filing in state court, the officers hope to keep their lawsuit out of the multi-district litigation, which is not expected to award any damages anytime soon, Adams said.

"There's no telling how long we'd be stuck in that," Adams said.

St. Joe Co., the region's largest landholder, earlier this year won a decision in a Delaware state court that would allow them to keep their suit in state court and out of the federal multi-district litigation in Louisiana.

When calculating their claims to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF), private businesses discounted the overhead costs -- employee wages and benefits -- that they saved when tourism dipped after the oil spill, Adams said. The employees were then free to file their own claims for those losses. According to a release, the officers filed claims with the GCCF that were denied.

The city of Panama City Beach is not a party to the lawsuits, said City Attorney Doug Sale. The city supports the officers' efforts to seek compensation through the suits, Sale said.

"It's their suit and the city's not going to stand in their way," Sale said.

BP already has settled a $1.2 million claim with Panama City Beach that is based on revenue loss and doesn't take into account loss of income and benefits the officers are claiming, Adams said. GCCF has taken the position that government employees' claims will not be honored, Adams said.

Doug Lyons, of Lyons and Farrar in Tallahassee and Miami, and Tim Howard, a professor at Northeastern University who also represented Florida in the landmark civil suit against Big Tobacco, make up the remaining two-thirds of the legal team representing the officers.