Mobile, Alabama resident files suit against BP for negative impact on health, recreation

 

[caption id="attachment_10146" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Fishing in Bayou Gauche"][/caption]

Mt Pleasant, SC. Editor -A resident of Mobile, Alabama has filed suit against BP and other defendants, charging them with risking his health and causing him serious injuries.

The lawsuit, filed by Obie F. Carlisle, maintains that as a Mobile, Alabama resident and recreational fisherman he was harmed by the BP oil spill, and so he has filed suit against 16 companies involved.

This is the accounting that came from PR Newswire about this issue.

Carlisle maintains that on May 298, 2010 he was fishing for flounder in Mobile Bay, near Fairhope and Bayou La Batra, Ala. For three or four hours, he waded in the bay to engage in "flounder gigging," which is a method of flounder fishing.  Unknown to him at the time, he was being exposed to oil and toxins from the Deepwater Horizon spill.

The contention is there were no signs at the time this happened and that shortly afterward Carlisle experienced painful rashes, nosebleeds, nasal blockages and shortness of breath, afflictions that continue to this day.

"The gross negligence and recklessness of BP is destroying people's lives in so many different ways that they must be punished to the full extent of the law," said Ron Motley of Motley Rice LLC, who is representing Carlisle.

 "For Obie Carlisle, BP not only damaged his health, causing serious injury; it took away his greatest joy, which was to fish in the Gulf's once-fertile waters. BP must be fully held to account for exposing Obie and others to toxins and carcinogens unleashed in the Gulf's waters.

"This case will also help address the catastrophic array of errors involved in the drilling activities onboard the Deepwater Horizon on the evening of April 20, 2010, and force the industry to change so that no one else has to suffer a similar fate," Motley said.

The complaint, Carlisle v. BP P.L.C., et al, which was filed in Circuit Court for Mobile County, Alabama is said to be noteworthy as a health effects lawsuit involving a private citizen engaged in recreational activity rather than occupational exposure.

According to the complaint, BP is charged with the fact it "cut corners on safety, ignored federal and state laws and regulations, failed to prepare for the disaster they knew was entirely foreseeable, and then, after the explosion, tried to cover up the severity of the spill and downplay its catastrophic impact, undermining clean-up efforts."

The complaint also documents what Carlisle maintains is his exposure to the oil and the adverse impact it has had on his health and discusses scientific evidence the complaint says backs up the plaintiff's claims.  It lists the contents of the oil benzene, toluene, polyaromatic hydrocarbons and other compounds which are known carcinogens, the complaint alleges that exposure has been shown to cause rashes, dizziness, headaches, nausea, infertility, immune system suppression, disruption of hormone levels, blood disorders, mutations, cancer, and lung, liver and kidney damage.

In addition, the complaint alleges that rather than deploying dispersant chemicals known to be reasonably safe, the defendants used more than one million gallons of Corexit products which have been banned in the United Kingdom since 1998. A key ingredient in these products is 2-butoxyethanol, exposure to which can cause rashes, coughing, wheezing, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, abdominal pain, headache, dizziness, liver and kidney damage, cancer, and skin, nose and throat irritation.

 The BP oil spill
lawsuit, as narrated in the press release, demands a jury trial, and
compensatory and punitive damages.