A federal district court improperly rubber-stamped a legal malpractice settlement offer stemming from litigation over the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
In an unpublished opinion issued Tuesday, the appellate court sided with a law firm representing the Deepwater Horizon Economic Claim Program. The firm argued that the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana had improperly enforced a settlement deal to which the firm never agreed.
The litigation involved multiple groups across the Gulf who had sued Howard L. Nations APC for legal malpractice. The district court’s decision to enforce the settlement faced scrutiny as the firm representing the claim program asserted that it had not agreed to the term sheet, making the court’s enforcement of the settlement questionable.
For an in-depth look at the court’s opinion and implications for future legal malpractice cases, visit Bloomberg Law.