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- Title
Pure Economic Loss Claims Under the Oil Pollution Act: Combining Policy and Congressional Intent.
- Authors
Davis, Andrew B.
- Abstract
The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010 was a rude reminder of the potentially disastrous consequences of a large oil spill. Many residents and businesses throughout the Gulf Coast suffered financial losses without accompanying physical injury to their property. The common law would deny recovery for such claims on the grounds that physical injury to a proprietary interest must accompany any claim for economic losses. Under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, however, a claimant need not prove proprietary harm to recover. Yet, because of vague statutory language and underdeveloped case law, precisely when a claimant may recover for a purely economic loss remains unclear. Both the courts and the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, which administers a fund for claims arising from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, accept that proximate cause analysis should limit liability, but have not fleshed out the required nexus between the spill and the financial loss. This creates uncertainty and allows recovery in circumstances not clearly required by the Act's language, both of which impose unwarranted costs on the recovery scheme. To reduce these costs, courts could narrowly interpret the Act's pure economic loss provision to require what this Note calls direct economic injury. The first-best solution, however, is for Congress to delegate authority to the Environmental Protection Agency so that it may construct more informed, flexible, and politically accountable rules regarding recovery for pure economic losses.
- Subjects
UNITED States; OIL spill laws; ECONOMIC loss rule (Torts); BP Deepwater Horizon Explosion &; Oil Spill, 2010; PROXIMATE cause (Law); LIABILITY for oil pollution damages; UNITED States. Environmental Protection Agency
- Publication
Columbia Journal of Law & Social Problems, 2011, Vol 45, Issue 5, p1
- ISSN
0010-1923
- Publication type
Article