Sabrina Canfield
Courthouse News
NEW ORLEANS (CN) – Louisiana must produce documents for the Deepwater Horizon oil-spill litigation or it could be fined up to $10,000 a day – and it could lose its right to any claims at all, for failure to prosecute, a federal judge ruled.
According to U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Sally Shushan’s 5-page order: “While the court appreciates that Louisiana is required to expend funds to produce the documents, it is necessary that its document production be completed so that this MDL [multi district litigation] proceeding may progress as scheduled.”
Shushan set new deadlines for Louisiana’s document production, and ordered steep fines if the state fails. If it does not turn over documents within 21 days of the deadline, “the court will consider, either on its own motion or the motion of any party, whether the claims of Louisiana in this MDL shall be dismissed in whole or in part for failure to prosecute,” the order states.
The order is a step on the long legal road stemming from the April 20, 2010 explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 and set off the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
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