IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 19-30090

Summary Calendar

CLAIMANT ID 100062351, 

 Requesting Party - Appellant

v.

BP EXPLORATION & PRODUCTION, INCORPORATED; BP AMERICA 

PRODUCTION COMPANY; BP, P.L.C., 

 Objecting Parties - Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Louisiana

USDC No. 2:18-CV-13781

Before KING, SOUTHWICK, and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

This is yet another claim under the Settlement Program created after 

the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The case involves neither a split in appeal 

panel decisions nor a misapplication of the Settlement Agreement. The district 

court did not abuse its discretion in denying review. AFFIRMED. 

 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

September 13, 2019

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

We have elsewhere detailed the facts surrounding the Deepwater 

Horizon disaster, the Settlement Agreement negotiated to resolve claims 

related to the enormous volumes of oil discharged into the Gulf of Mexico 

during that disaster, and the claims process under that Agreement for 

Business Economic Loss claimants. See In re Deepwater Horizon (Deepwater 

Horizon I), 732 F.3d 326, 329-30 (5th Cir. 2013); see also In re Deepwater 

Horizon, 785 F.3d 1003, 1007 (5th Cir. 2015) (explaining the claims 

administration process). 

The claimant here is a Louisiana seafood business. It is one part of a 

larger business consisting of three separate corporate entities with common 

ownership. The three entities are: (1) the claimant in this appeal, New Orleans

Fish House & Seafood, LLC (“NOFH, LLC”); (2) New Orleans Fish House & 

Seafood, Inc. (“NOFH&S”); and (3) New Orleans Fish House, Inc. (“NOFH, 

Inc.”). NOFH, Inc. owned the properties that it leased to the two other 

corporate entities. NOFH, LLC and NOFH&S bought, processed, and sold 

seafood. 

Each of the three entities submitted claims through the current 

Settlement Program and its precursor, the Gulf Coast Claims Facility

(“GCCF”). NOFH&S and NOFH, LLC were evaluated together for the purpose 

of calculating an award under the GCCF. During the court-ordered transition 

to the Settlement Program from the GCCF, NOFH&S accepted payment of 

60% of the pending joint-settlement offer while reserving its rights to recover 

the greater of either the economic class settlement amount less the alreadyaccepted payment, or the remaining 40% of its pending joint-settlement offer, 

as it was entitled under Section 4.2.3.1 of the Settlement Agreement. 

After the transition, the three entities again submitted separate claims 

through the Settlement Program. The claim filed by NOFH&S was resolved 

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first. The calculated award under the Settlement Agreement was $791,671.86. 

Because this amount was lower than the $1,273,979 award NOFH&S had 

already received as 60% of its offer under the GCCF, it received the remaining 

40%: $324,586. 

The claimant here, NOFH, LLC, sought $2,087,508 for several of its 

facilities located in Louisiana and Mississippi as a Seafood Commercial 

Wholesale or Retail Dealer — Type A in Zone C. The Claims Administrator 

designated NOFH, LLC a Secondary Seafood Processor based on NAICS Code 

311712 in Zone C and calculated an award of $2,089,663.31. This award was, 

however, offset by $1,076,395.89 — representing the total award NOFH&S had 

already received in excess of its calculated award under the Settlement 

Agreement, plus payments already made to the owners by the GCCF and BP 

for the activity of the businesses. As a result, the total award to NOFH, LLC 

under the Settlement Agreement was $1,013,267.42. 

BP sought review by an Appeal Panel, arguing the Claims Administrator 

had assigned NOFH&S the wrong NAICS code. BP maintained that NOFH&S 

should have been categorized as a participant in the Secondary Seafood 

Industry in Zone D, and therefore it was required to satisfy the Settlement 

Agreement 4B causation requirements. NOFH, LLC cross-appealed, arguing 

that the Claims Administrator incorrectly offset its award based on prior 

payments to a separate entity. 

The Appeal Panel decided in favor of BP, accepting its proposed 

settlement amount of $0 under the baseball appeal process set forth in Section 

6 of the Settlement Agreement based on a determination that NOFH, LLC 

should have been categorized as being in the Secondary Seafood Industry in 

Zone D and that it failed to prove causation. The Appeal Panel further ruled 

that the Claims Administrator correctly applied prior payments to NOFH&S 

as offsets. 

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The claimant sought discretionary review of the Appeal Panel decision 

in the Eastern District of Louisiana. That court denied review. The claimant

now appeals from the denial of discretionary review. 

DISCUSSION

We review the district court’s denial of discretionary review of 

Settlement Program claims for abuse of discretion. BP Expl. & Prod., Inc., v. 

Claimant ID 100281817, 919 F.3d 284, 287 (5th Cir. 2019). The district court 

abuses its discretion when the case “raises a recurring issue on which the 

Appeal Panels are split [and] the resolution of the question will substantially 

impact the administration of the Agreement” or “the decision not reviewed . . . 

actually contradicted or misapplied the Settlement Agreement, or had the clear 

potential to [do so].” Id. (quotations omitted). When the determination 

involves a “purely legal question[] of contract interpretation” of the Settlement 

Agreement, our “review is effectively de novo” because errors of law are 

necessarily abuses of discretion. In re Deepwater Horizon, 785 F.3d at 1011. 

The district court does not abuse its discretion to deny review where there is 

“no pressing question of how the Settlement Agreement should be interpreted” 

or where review would be of “a discretionary administrative decision” that 

turns on “the facts of a single claimant’s case.” Claimant ID 100212278 v. BP 

Expl. & Prod., Inc., 848 F.3d 407, 410 (5th Cir. 2017) (quotation omitted). 

The claimant first contends that the Appeal Panel decision misapplied 

the Settlement Agreement in finding that it had not proved causation without 

providing the opportunity to supplement the record with causation 

documentation, which it alleges was inconsistent with the “claimant friendly” 

claims process set forth in the Settlement Agreement. The claimant also 

argues that the Appeal Panel erred in affirming the application of a settlement 

offset based on GCCF payments to NOFH&S. 

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With respect to causation, the claimant alleges that the district court 

abused its discretion in failing to review the Appeal Panel’s alleged failure to 

follow Sections 4.3.7, 4.4.2, and 6.1.1 of the Settlement Agreement. Section 

4.3.7 mandates that the Settlement Program “shall use its best efforts” to give 

claimants “assistance, information, opportunities and notice” so that each 

claimant “has the best opportunity to be determined eligible” for payment. 

Section 4.4.2 requires the Settlement Program to notify each claimant who had 

a pending GCCF claim at the time of Settlement “what, if any, additional 

information may be necessary or desirable to pursue [pending claims] under 

the terms of the Settlement Agreement.” Finally, Section 6.1.1 of the 

Settlement Agreement creates a notice and appeals process for claims denied 

“on grounds of insufficient documentation,” providing claimants the right to 

resubmit any such claims “at any time prior to termination of the Settlement 

Agreement.” 

With respect to the settlement offset, the claimant alleges that the 

Appeal Panel’s treatment of NOFH&S and NOFH, LLC is inconsistent with 

the language of the Settlement Agreement that directs separate corporate 

entities to file separate claims under unique Employer Identification Numbers. 

The claimants also allege that the Appeal Panel’s decision created a split 

because at least four prior Appel Panel decisions “treated claimants separately 

when they had separate EINs and filed separate tax returns, despite the fact 

that they operated in the same locations or shared common ownership.” 

Claimant ID 100068924 v. BP Expl. & Prod., Inc., 765 F. App’x 956, 959 (5th 

Cir. 2019). 

As to the offset payment, BP argues that the separate claims filed by 

NOFH, LLC and NOFH&S under the GCCF were consolidated under a single 

claim number, and the GCCF portal made it clear that “both the Corporation 

and the LLC were evaluated together for this calculation as they are related 

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entities with 95% + of the corporations sales going to the LLC in the form of an 

intercompany transfer.” 

As to the Appeal Panel’s determination that the claimant was required 

but failed to prove causation, BP argues that Rule 13(h) of the Rules Governing

the Appeal Process specifically allows claimants to submit additional 

documents with its “Final Proposal and supporting memorandum” in “any 

appeal by BP, where BP contends that the claim does not comply with the 

applicable documentation requirements set forth in the Settlement 

Agreement.” Further, the Rules allow the Appeal Coordinator to extend the 

Final Proposal deadline if the claimant “cannot reasonably obtain and submit 

the documentation by the deadline for submitting its Final Proposal.” 

The Appeal Panel’s decision is independently supported by its decision 

that the claimant was required to prove causation. That decision is precisely 

the sort of “discretionary administrative decision” that turns on “the facts of a 

single claimant’s case,” which the district court has the discretion to deny. 

Claimant ID 100212278, 848 F.3d at 410 (quotation omitted). 

AFFIRMED.

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