Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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Official Court Reporter: Jodi Simcox, RMR
2 500 Poydras Street, Room HB-406
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130
3 (504) 589-7780
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Proceedings recorded by mechanical stenography, transcript
7 produced by computer.
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1 PROCEEDINGS
2 (January 4, 2007)
3 THE DEPUTY CLERK: All rise.
4 THE COURT: Be seated, please. Good morning, ladies
5 and gentlemen. Call the case, please.
6 THE DEPUTY CLERK: Civil Action 05-4206. Patrick
7 Joseph Turner versus Murphy Oil USA, Inc.
8 THE COURT: Counsel, make your appearances for the
9 record.
10 MR. MILLER: Kerry Miller on behalf of Murphy Oil
11 USA, Your Honor.
12 MR. TORRES: Your Honor, Sidney Torres on behalf of
13 the plaintiffs steering committee.
14 THE COURT: Okay. This case involves claims
15 regarding property damage arising from an incident in
16 St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana that occurred sometime during the
17 week following landfall of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
18 On September the 3rd, 2005, the defendant,
19 Murphy Oil, notified the federal government that an oil spill
20 had been detected at the Mereaux refinery in St. Bernard and at
21 least 25,000 barrels of crude oil escaped from the above-ground
22 storage tank located on the Murphy property, which apparently
23 floated and became dislodged.
24 Some of the oil traveled into the neighborhoods
25 surrounding the refinery. The plaintiffs are homeowners and
1 finally, Your Honor, sort of the outer ring of the area that
2 was certified, there is a 15,000 flat rate being paid to owners
3 of property; tenants receive an additional $2,500 who were
4 living or renting business space in Zone 4.
5 Your Honor, this allocation diagram is a product
6 of a lot of objective and scientific evidence. We didn't come
7 up with it willy nilly by any means. Many months was spent
8 with scientists, with real estate experts, with people who were
9 on the ground after the hurricane and knew where the oil got
10 and where the oil didn't get and where it was thick and where
11 it wasn't thick. And this was the product of thousands of
12 hours of research and analysis.
13 In Zone 1 what you have here, Your Honor, is you
14 have the area that the EPA had determined was heavily
15 contaminated. EPA observed every single house, you know, in
16 this area, Your Honor, and they charted it, red, orange, green,
17 blue, and all but a fraction of red properties are in this
18 area.
19 Separately, Mr. Torres mentioned the 5,500
20 properties have been tested. The applicable health base
21 standard applied by the EPA and LDEQ is known as a RECAP MO-1
22 standard. The vast, vast majority of RECAP MO-1 exceeds are in
23 this area.
24 So what we're doing by virtue of the buyout,
25 Your Honor, is: Number one, we're creating a buffer between
1 Exhibit 3A through E.
2 THE COURT: Let those be admitted.
3 MR. MEUNIER: Tab 4 in the binder, Judge, would be
4 the affidavits of class counsel.
5 And we have done our best to furnish in the
6 record today all of the affidavits from all class counsel who,
7 because of scheduling, et cetera, were able to do so. And you
8 will see each class counsel identified in the index and by
9 affidavit.
10 They are Madro Bandaries, Daniel Becnel,
11 Robert Becnel, William Bradley, Walter Dumas, Val Exnicious,
12 Michael Hingle, Hugh Lambert, Gerald Meunier, Ronnie Penton,
13 Carroll Rogers, Michael Stag and Sidney Torres.
14 And then there is a Joint Exhibit, Your Honor,
15 from Robert Becnel and Jerald Andry, which specifies
16 information for the Court on the claims process, which is, as
17 Mr. Torres said, an ongoing process. And that affidavit
18 furnishes additional information on the claims process.
19 The other affidavits all express the views of
20 class counsel, that they have examined the settlement, they are
21 familiar with the litigation and their responsibilities as
22 court-appointed class counsel, and they find and support the
23 settlement as being fair and adequate and in the best interest
24 of class members.
25 And we would offer as Joint Exhibit 4A through N
1 Judge Klees.
2 MR. MEUNIER: Your Honor, excuse me. Jerry Meunier.
3 Before Judge Klees addresses the Court, I
4 neglected to mention that one of the matters that we'd like to
5 place in the record of this hearing is the record of the class
6 certification hearing before Your Honor January 12th and
7 13th of 2006, and we respectfully incorporate and adopt the
8 record of the transcript of that hearing.
9 THE COURT: That will be made a part of the record.
10 Let me hear from Judge Klees. As I mentioned, I appointed
11 Judge Klees as a special master in this matter to assist the
12 court in discussing the objections, as well as other areas.
13 I appreciate all of the work that he's been
14 doing in this matter. I know you worked very hard on it and
15 you have the Court's appreciation. I'll hear from Judge Klees
16 at this time.
17 JUDGE KLEES: Your Honor, first, I would like to
18 thank you very much for allowing me to participate in this
19 process. As a resident of St. Bernard Parish, I have been
20 affected; and it has always bothered me that I had very little
21 input into the process and you included me and I truly
22 appreciate what you did.
23 We were able to meet with 21 persons whom we had
24 objections from. We met on January 2nd and 3rd of this year.
25 I was able to have Mr. Sal Gutierrez, Mickey Landry and
1 Jay Andry for the PSC present, as well as Mr. Sidney Torres,
2 Mr. A.J. Krouse and Daniel Dysart from Murphy Oil Corporation.
3 So I found it was a very good thing for the
4 people to have both sides of the fence there, as well as the
5 Murphy Oil representative, and we were able to work out
6 solutions for a lot of people.
7 We talked to 21 people. The first was Arthur
8 and Sondra Arseneaux, and their objection has been withdrawn.
9 We talked to Terrence Meyer, and his objection was withdrawn.
10 Bernie and Linda Deschamp, their objection has been withdrawn.
11 Mr. Gregory Faia, who is present in court today,
12 presented an objection because he showed me that he was the
13 registered land owner of property in the area. Unfortunately,
14 the previous land owner had made a settlement with Murphy and
15 there is some confusion there.
16 My recommendation to you is that he be allowed
17 to remain as a member of the class and present his claim. But
18 I'm sure you're going to hear from the other representatives
19 and they'll make their spiel to you in a moment.
20 Mr. Wayne Duchmann was also present and his
21 objection could not be resolved. He was invited to appear here
22 today and make his presentation to the Court. Mr. James
23 Philpot also was present and his objection has been withdrawn.
24 Peter and Betsy Harrison, their objection has
25 been withdrawn. Kevin Karcher, objection has been withdrawn.
1 have a right to rely upon the public records; and the public
2 records indicated that on that date, the date of the
3 settlement, Ms. Valenzo was, according to the public records,
4 the owner of that property. So on that basis, we would
5 respectfully disagree with the special master's ruling.
6 If the Court would like to have this briefed
7 within seven to ten days, we can do that. By all the means, we
8 do not want to hold up anything with the fairness hearing, but
9 we believe that we need to state our opposition here.
10 THE COURT: Yeah, I understand the issue. Mr. Faia,
11 I think it's fair. There's no question in my mind in looking
12 at the material that the wrong person was paid. The issue is
13 who's responsible for the wrong person being paid.
14 There there's some interplay with the public
15 records doctrine in Louisiana, which is somewhat peculiar to
16 Louisiana, but it's a part of the civil law tradition that
17 provides that third-parties to a transaction can rely on public
18 records.
19 Now, there's certain requirements before that
20 public record doctrine is in play. I understand you're a well
21 recognized real estate attorney, so you probably know this
22 better than anybody in this courtroom. But I think it would be
23 fair to give both of you an opportunity just to focus me on
24 whether or not the public records doctrine has any play in this
25 case.
1 the people across the street received three times more money
2 being in the fairness of this settlement and these people walk
3 and they have a normal life and they also live in a house right
4 now.
5 My mama didn't have that opportunity. She's
6 paid only one-third of what they would get -- what they have
7 received. And is that fair?
8 THE COURT: That's your objection?
9 MR. DUCHMANN: No, my objection goes on to -- well, I
10 filed a memorandum in support of my objection.
11 THE COURT: And I will make that a part of the
12 record.
13 MR. DUCHMANN: And also that, and this video will
14 show, 16 years ago that Murphy Oil failed to comply with state,
15 federal and local regulations.
16 As of three weeks ago, they also failed to let
17 the fire foreman inside the refinery. They stopped him from
18 going into the refinery. They locked the gate. And that just
19 shows you that they have no intention to ever, ever comply with
20 any laws and regulations set forth by this court or the state.
21 And if Kerry Miller would stand up and come
22 forward, I'd like to address the Court because I did file a
23 notice in judge chambers, and it wasn't in reference to the
24 attorneys we fired, it was in reference to Mr. Kerry Miller and
25 his conduct, disobeying a court order.
1 this. I'd rather not be here today. I'm only here today
2 because of 3,009 Americans lost their life defending the
3 Constitution, which I'm here today to uphold this Constitution.
4 I think it is my duty as an American to be here for those who
5 cannot be here.
6 THE COURT: Okay. I appreciate your being here.
7 MR. DUCHMANN: Okay. I will file an appeal and take
8 it from there.
9 THE COURT: All right. Thank you very much.
10 MR. DUCHMANN: Your Honor, you did say you would like
11 to see the video and --
12 THE COURT: No, I've put the video into evidence.
13 I'll accept the video as evidence and I'll make it a part of
14 your objection; and also the documents that you have filed,
15 I'll make that a part of the record.
16 MR. DUCHMANN: Can you also make part of the record
17 that Mr. Kerry Miller did meet with me when you had a court
18 order to stop him from meeting with residents in the buyout
19 area?
20 THE COURT: What are you --
21 MR. DUCHMANN: It was under a court order that he
22 disobeyed.
23 THE COURT: Okay. All right. Thank you very much.
24 MR. DUCHMANN: So that doesn't mean nothing to you?
25 THE COURT: Anything else from anybody?