The United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation issued a Transfer Order yesterday in which it consolidated economic, environmental and personal injury cases arising out of the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill.
The panel assigned U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier to preside over the multidistrict litigation (MDL). The cases will be transferred to the Eastern District of Louisiana. In determining the location, the MDL Panel stated:
Without discounting the spill’s effects on other states, if there is a geographic and psychological “center of gravity” in this docket, then the Eastern District of Louisiana is closest to it.
The MDL Panel issued a second order consolidating and transferring all shareholder actions against BP to the Southern District of Texas.
