Settlement for contamination of fishing areas and loss of use of coastal properties following 2015 oil spill near Refugio State Beach

Our clients were two certified classes of plaintiffs, Pacific Ocean fishers from the Central Coast to Southern California whose fishing areas were polluted with oil from the Plains Oil spill, and residents of coastal properties who lost use of their beach amenities due to oil washing up on shore. The pipeline company denied that it had harmed anyone, despite widespread losses and clear impacts to the community.

The federal litigation was hard-fought for seven years, including multiple efforts by the defendants to decertify the classes. We took dozens of depositions of oil industry executives, class representatives, and expert witnesses. Class counsel focused on causation to prove systemic disfunction and negligence within the oil company, from executives in Houston, Texas to operational personnel in Santa Barbara. Class counsel used top experts in fishery health, fluid dynamics, and industry and property economics to prove hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.

On the eve of trial, the defendants agreed to pay $230 million to compensate the real property and fisher classes, delivering substantial rewards to the many members of our coastal communities who had endured the litigation after being impacted by the spill.