A lawsuit has been filed in 295th District Court in Harris County, TX on behalf of a worker seriously injured in the deadly natural gas pipeline explosion that rocked Cleburne, a rural area 50 miles southwest of Dallas, TX, last week. Attorneys for the victim are Richard J. Arsenault, Wesley J. Gralapp and W. Mark Lanier.

The victim, a member of a 23-man crew employed by C&H Power Line Construction, was installing a utility pole when an unmarked gas line was nicked, triggering a massive fireball that consumed nearly 50 acres. The reverberation could be felt miles away from the explosion site, and heat from the blast melted the shoes of rescue workers, even after the fire was extinguished.

“The gas company is responsible for properly marking all of their underground pipelines. That didn’t happen, now a man is dead and several others were seriously burned,” said Richard Arsenault, whose law firm has teamed up in this matter with Mark Lanier.

The lawsuit alleges that Houston-based Enterprise Product Partners failed to properly mark the location of underground pipe, despite C&H’s request to do so. The Texas Railroad Commission confirmed that C&H had followed procedure and made the proper requests prior to the start of the construction. A full incident report is still 45-60 days away.

The victim suffered second and third degree burns to his back, neck and arms, which have resulted in serious damage to the muscle tissue. The concussion from the blast caused damage to his heart, lungs and internal organs, despite having been approximately 150 yards from the pipe at the time of the explosion. Several of the victim’s co-workers were also injured in the blast, including an Oklahoma man who died from his injuries.

“Plain and simple, this was a preventable tragedy,” said Arsenault, “and it’s troubling to see, time and time again, energy companies engaging in practices that play havoc with human lives as well as our environment.”

Today, Attorney Richard J. Arsenault addressed the topic of the “Louisiana’s Judiciary and Mass Torts, Class Actions and Complex Litigation” at the 2010 Louisiana State Bar Association’s Annual Convention in Destin, FL. Arsenault, who chairs the Bar’s Section on Insurance, Negligence, Workers’ Compensation and Admiralty, will be joined by a distinguished panel that includes Chief Justice Pascal Calogero, Judge Robert Klees, Judge Ward Fontenot, Judge Ronald Cox and Professor Tom Galligan.

At the convention, Arsenault will also chair two other programs 1. Recent Tort and Maritime Developments and 2. The Gulf Coast Oil Spill Litigation.

Last month, Arsenault and Galligan co-chaired the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Gulf Coast Oil Spill Litigation Conference in New Orleans, which attracted hundreds of attorneys from across the country as well as members of Bloomberg Business Week and the Wall Street Journal.

Later this month, Arsenault will serve as Chair of the HarrisMartin Publishing’s Oil Spill Symposium in New Orleans. In addition, he was recently named Co-chair of the American Association for Justice’s Gulf Oil Spill Litigation Group, where he will lead educational programs and provide litigation support to attorneys who represent victims of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The Litigation Group will hold its first meeting at the AAJ Annual Convention in Vancouver, British Columbia this July.

With a diverse career spanning three decades, Richard Arsenault is recognized as a leading lawyer in the areas of maritime law, serious personal injury and mass tort/complex litigation. He is a frequent speaker and has published numerous articles on various legal topics. Because of his unique experiences and expertise, Arsenault has been featured by the Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Reuters, NPR, CBS, BBC and other major media.

Jurors in Colorado ruled that Time Insurance d/b/a Assurant Health must pay $37 million to a former preschool teacher for cancelling her health insurance after she was seriously injured in a car accident. Time/Assurant refused to pay approximately $185,000 in medical bills from the accident and cancelled the woman’s policy. The insurance company’s “excuse” was that she failed to disclose a previous emergency room visit for shortness of breath. Jurors obviously didn’t buy it.

After the debilitating accident, the Colorado woman was left unable to return to work and now supports her four children on Social Security disability payments.

This is just one example of the arrogance of insurers nationwide who want to cherry pick who they cover and arbitrarily look for excuses to cancel coverage in the middle of serious illnesses or injuries- just at the time you need your coverage the most! Kudos to the Colorado jurors for making the insurers pay a heavy price for their ill-advised actions. If more jurors will make similar gutsy rulings, insurance companies will be forced to deal with all of us in the fair manner we all deserve and expect.

The results of our national driving test are in and we Bayou Staters should be ashamed! Louisiana drivers scored 46th in the nation for their driving knowledge, with almost a third of the respondents failing the annual GMAC Insurance National Drivers Test. Louisiana drivers had an average score of 74.1 percent (70 percent or higher is a passing score) and 31.1 percent of Louisiana respondents failed the test. Sadly our poor scores reflect a decrease in good driving knowledge and habits. In 2009, we as a state ranked 37th.

The sixth annual national test gauges driver knowledge by administering 20 questions taken from state Department of Motor Vehicles exams. Kansas drivers ranked first in the nation (82.3 percent average score); New York drivers ranked last (70 percent average score).

Overall, the test scores indicate a large number of licensed American drivers continue to lack knowledge of basic rules of the road. Eighty-five percent could not identify the correct action to take when approaching a steady yellow traffic light, and many remained confused by the appropriate safe following distances. Is it any wonder that car accidents, especially those involving serious injuries and fatalities continue to be a serious problem? With this number of ill-prepared drivers we certainly cannot expect insurance rates to decline anytime in the near future.

We need to wake up to these realities and formulate better training for young drivers, stricter testing for new drivers and elderly drivers with health issues, as well as re-training for drivers who have a record of causing multiple auto accidents which involve injuries to others.

Giant retailer WalMart was forced to pull its Miley Cyrus line of children’s jewelry from its shelves after high levels of the toxic metal cadmium were found. WalMart has known of the high cadmium levels since February but chose to continue to sell the product. However, when nationwide reports began to surface, WalMart finally decided to do the right thing for its customers. The Miley Cyrus make-it-yourself charm bracelets were big sellers for WalMart which defended its decision to keep selling the toy by requiring suppliers to prove that the children’s item had little or no cadmium. WalMart did not apply that high standard to items already on its shelves. In response to inquiries at a hearing of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, WalMart said testing the items itself would be too difficult.

Cadmium had no good effects on human health. High level cadmium levels irritate the stomach leading to vomiting and diarrhea. Ingesting cadmium has also been linked to high blood pressure, iron poor blood, liver, kidney, nerve and brain damage. Breathing cadmium can severly damage the lungs and cause death.

WalMart was finally forced to stop selling the defective products after extensive reporting of the toxic nature of the toys. It appears they continued to sell the products which are specifically marketed to children because of the lucrative sales resulting in big profits. Although the defective toys have been pulled from the shelves, how many children have already been exposed to the toxic cadmium? We need to have better testing and approval procedures BEFORE these imported products reach American consumers.

In their annual “Best of Cenla Readers’ Choice Awards Issue“, Cenla Focus Magazine named Neblett, Beard & Arsenault’s TV advertisement as “Best Local TV Commercial 2010.”

Thanks to everyone that voted and thanks for watching!

Check out our ad in the next issue of Cenla Foucs!

A group of 18 workers compensation insurers including Liberty Mutual, Hanover and State Auto Mutual have been ordered to repay almost $10 million in excess profits to policyholders. The companies have 60 days to make the refunds. These excess profits were from as far back as 2005. In other words, these insurance companies have been holding onto profits they were not entitled to for up to five years instead of being in the pocketbooks of their customers. Just another example of greed and putting profit ahead of fair and appropriate dealings with the people who end up getting the shaft on the other end.

Keynote Speaker James Carville

Professor Tom C. Galligan, President of Colby-Sawyer College, and Attorney Richard J. Arsenault, Founding Partner of Neblett, Beard & Arsenault, will co-chair the Louisiana State Bar Association’s Gulf Coast Oil Symposium on May 25th at the Sheraton in New Orleans, LA.

The conference was coordinated to address the complex issues associated with the growing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Galligan and Arsenault have assembled a talented faculty, which include some of the most prominent attorneys in the country. The keynote speaker will be world renowned author, professor and political strategist, James Carville.

The symposium aims to shed light on the complex legal issues involved in this disaster, including governmental claims, potential claimants and recoverable damages, the Limitation of Liability Act, the types and qualifications of experts, Coast Guard and MMS investigations, and the status of multi-district litigation, as well as the impact on the environment and economy of the region.

Professor Tom Galligan, Jr. is currently the President of Colby-Sawyer College. He served as the Dean of the University of Tennessee College of Law from 1998-2006 and was a professor at LSU Law School from 1986-1998. He has published and spoken extensively on maritime law and his scholarship has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Louisiana Supreme Court, other courts, and commentators. His co-authored scholarship with Professor Frank L. Maraist has been honored by the Tulane Law Review and the Louisiana Bar Journal.

Richard J. Arsenault has been involved in maritime litigation for 30 years. He is a former Chair of the AAJ Admiralty Law Section and has chaired the Louisiana Bar Association’s Annual Admiralty Symposium since its inception 17 years ago. He has published and spoken extensively on maritime topics and his scholarship has appeared in various publications including the Maritime Lawyer, the Maritime Law Reporter, Trial Magazine and the La. Bar Journal. Arsenault is the current Chair of the Louisiana Bar Association’s Section on Insurance, Negligence, Worker’s Compensation and Admiralty Law. Twice a year, Arsenault, Professor Galligan and several Federal Court Judges participate in panel presentations designed to review recent maritime developments. Arsenault also serves on the LSU Law School Trial Advocacy Faculty.

An 18-wheeler plunged off Interstate 49 which blocked a portion of the interstate to traffic. A 2003 Freightliner driving southbound on Interstate 49 near the Cheneyville, Louisiana exit ran off the interstate, damaging the guardrail. The tractor/trailer rig flip over and caught fire. The cab of the 18-wheeler was almost completely incinerated by the fire.

The semi was driven by Joe Anderson, 26, of Ennis, Texas. Anderson was charged with careless operation of a vehicle. The semi was hauling 42,000 pounds of adhesive. The flipping of an 18 wheeler is usually the result of the negligence in the handling of the truck and the trailer by the driver, operating at an excessive, dangerous, and unreasonable speed under the circumstances and in failing to reduce his speed in obedience to the warning signs posted. Also fatigue of the truck driver from exceeding legal hours of service can result in this type of collision.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar acknowledged that the government did not have adequate standards in place for the devices that are supposed to prevent blowouts on off-shore oil rigs. The blowout preventer on the Transocean Deepwater Horizon rig drilling for BP, which exploded and sank on April 20, failed allowing the endless flow of oil into the Gulf water.

Congressional investigators have found that the BOP suffered from leaking hydraulic fluid, a dead battery and an inadequate design. “The answer is no,” Salazar said in response to a pointed question from about the government standards on the device. “I think there is additional work that should have been done on blowout preventers.”

Blowout preventers are massive devices that sit at the top of a well and are designed to slam pipes shut in the event of an emergency. However, they cannot shear thick sections of pipe.

A House investigation found last week that the device on the Deepwater Horizon suffered from multiple problems that may have prevented it from working correctly a mile beneath the Gulf. The U.S. Government is now a defendant in the oil spill litigation. The National Law Journal reports, “As lawsuits over the BP oil spill mount, a group of conservationists and fishermen have a new target: the US Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service. A lawsuit has been filed in federal court against the federal agency.

The suit — Gulf Restoration Network and Sierra Club v. Salazar — charges that the agency violated federal law by exempting oil companies that drill in the Gulf of Mexico from disclosing blowout and worst-case spill scenarios as well as plans for dealing with them before approving the companies’ offshore drilling plans.