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By Kristen Hays
NEW ORLEANS, Feb 25 (Reuters) - A long-awaited trial overthe biggest U.S. offshore oil spill began on Monday, withgovernments, businesses and individuals blaming BP Plc mostly for the 2010 disaster that killed 11 rig workers andspilled 4 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
"Not only was it within BP's power to prevent the tragedy,it was its responsibility," Mike Underhill, a U.S. JusticeDepartment trial attorney, said at the trial over legalculpability for the blowout and spill.
The trial is being held with no jury before Judge CarlBarbier at federal court in New Orleans.
Lawyers for other plaintiffs also slammed BP executives, asdid attorneys for two of the well owner's co-defendants, rigowner Transocean Ltd and cement services providerHalliburton Co. BP lawyer Mike Brock said the blame wasshared by all three companies.
BP must show that its mistakes do not meet the legaldefinition of gross negligence required for the highest amountof damages. BP has already spent or committed $37 billion oncleanup, restoration, payouts, settlements and fines.
Beyond that, liabilities could stretch into the tens ofbillions of dollars if Barbier determines BP or the otherdefendants were grossly negligent. Oil came ashore from Texas toFlorida, threatening livelihoods and state economies dependenton seafood and tourism, so the list of plaintiffs is long.
Most observers expect the case to be settled before thetrial results in a verdict.
Underhill said that less than an hour before BP'slong-troublesome Macondo well ruptured and caused an explosion,BP's top well site leader on the rig called an engineer inHouston to discuss a critical pressure test that indicatedproblems.
Company officials did not stop the operation and "11 soulshad 47 minutes to live the rest of their lives," Underhill said.
Underhill said the accident could have been avoided ifonshore engineer Mark Hafle and well site leader Don Vidrine onthe rig had done their jobs. Vidrine faces separate criminalcharges in the disaster, as does Robert Kaluza, the otherhighest-ranking supervisor aboard the rig before the disaster.
Jim Roy, an attorney for other plaintiffs suing BP,Transocean, Halliburton and others, said BP executives at thehighest level felt pressure to push output to the limit.
"Production over protection. Profits over safety," said Roy,who represents plaintiffs who did not take part in an $8.5billion settlement BP struck last year.
Roy also said Transocean opened the door to disaster withpoor staff training and poor maintenance of seabed equipment,while Halliburton made substandard cement to plug the well.
Transocean's lawyer, Brad Brian, came out swinging againstBP, saying rig workers trusted the company and died betrayed.
Brian noted BP employees had referred to Macondo as a "wellfrom Hell" in emails, and the inaction following Vidrine andHafle's 8-minute phone call showed they did what BP had done fortwo months in the face of a risky well: "They did nothing."
Halliburton's lawyer, Don Godwin, made similar argumentsabout BP but also said Transocean's rig crew should have shut inthe well at the first sign of trouble. "Now is when they want topass the buck and blame my client for their misdeeds," he said.
And David Beck, the lawyer for Cameron International, maker of the blowout preventer atop the well, said thestructure works in tandem with other efforts to preventdisaster.
"It's a blowout preventer. It is not a blowout stopper,"Beck said.
In BP's opening statement, Brock said the misinterpretationof the pressure test was made along with Transocean. "It was amistake made by several men with two companies," Brock said."They should not have accepted it, but it was a mistake."
ASSESSING BLAME
Louisiana continues to suffer from the oil spill, stateAttorney General Buddy Caldwell said on Monday, with hundreds ofmiles of coastline still being polluted "less than 30 miles fromthe door of this courthouse."
Barbier, overseeing the trial, has deep Gulf Coast roots.Born in New Orleans in 1944, he went to Southeastern LouisianaUniversity and Loyola University New Orleans School of Law. Hehad a private practice for years in New Orleans before PresidentBill Clinton tapped him for the federal bench in 1998.
The judge, who handled several high-profile cases stemmingfrom Hurricane Katrina, had postponed the BP trial by more thana month. An army of media have descended on New Orleans to coverit, and the delay avoided a clash with the NFL Super Bowl onFeb. 3 or the Mardi Gras festival on Feb. 12.
The fact that the case has not yet settled surprises many."I never thought that they intended to try this case and reallycannot afford to do so because the exposure is too potentiallycatastrophic," said Blaine LeCesne, a professor at LoyolaUniversity College of Law in New Orleans.
The trial's first phase focuses on how much each company isto blame and the degree of negligence. Luther Strange, Alabama'sattorney general, said he would seek to show BP, Transocean andHalliburton all acted with "gross negligence and willfulmisconduct" and therefore would owe his state punitive damages.
Simple negligence involves mistakes. Gross negligenceinvolves reckless or willful disregard for human andenvironmental safety and is difficult to prove, experts say.
BP has consistently denied it was grossly negligent.
Any punitive damages would come on top of billions inpotential fines under the Clean Water Act. The payout by BP sofar included a record $4.5 billion in penalties, and a guiltyplea to 14 criminal counts to resolve charges from the JusticeDepartment and civil claims from U.S. securities regulators.
BP has sold assets to help cover its spill-related costs,including its older, smaller Gulf of Mexico operations.
The second phase of the trial, expected to start inSeptember, will focus on the flow rate of the oil that spewedfrom the well. The third phase in 2014 will consider damages.
The case is In re: Oil Spill by the Oil Rig "DeepwaterHorizon" in the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010, No.10-md-02179, in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District ofLouisiana.
