This has been a very bad year for BP. A Texas mother is now suing BP for the death of her infant son – a death she claims was caused by chemicals released into the air during the BP refinery leak this past Spring. The cause of Julius Provosts’ death could not be determined by the local medical examiner’s office, but his mother believes that the exposure to over 500,000 pounds of chemicals released during the leak was the ultimate cause of her son’s death.
The wrongful death lawsuit claims that Sharon Champion’s six month-old son was cared for by an aunt that lived one mile from the BP refinery, according to Southeast Texas Record. When the leak started, so did the following symptoms: runny nose, eye mucus, and a violent cough. Champion’s attorney, Anthony Buzbee, is quoted in the Claims Journal, “It’s almost like the baby drowned to death in its own fluids. BP will continue to downplay this and say their monitors failed to pick this up.”
Although the cause of injuries is essentially the same for both lawsuits, proving the elements for a wrongful death lawsuit is different from the elements required for the class action against BP. Whether the determination in one case could be used as proof (or lack thereof) of BP’s liability in the other action will be left to judicial discretion. Both the class action and the infant wrongful death suit seek $10 billion in damages.
Related Resources:
You Don’t Have To Solve This on Your Own – Get a Lawyer’s Help
Civil Rights
Block on Trump’s Asylum Ban Upheld by Supreme Court
Criminal
Judges Can Release Secret Grand Jury Records
Politicians Can’t Block Voters on Facebook, Court Rules
