Opinion ID: 2799728
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Claims-Administration Process

Text: The CSSP is managed by the Claims Administrator. After a claim determination has been made, BP or the claimant may appeal to an Appeal Panel. 1 A party may then appeal the Appeal Panel’s determination to the district court of Judge Barbier in the Eastern District of Louisiana, which has 1 Appeals of less than $1 million are heard by a single Appeal Panelist. 2 Case: 13-31296 Document: 00513036479 Page: 3 Date Filed: 05/08/2015 No. 13-31296 c/w Nos. 13-31299, 13-31302 discretion to hear such appeals. Pursuant to a district court order of May 20, 2013, denials of discretionary review are not docketed. 2 Rather, the district court gives notice to the parties and posts decisions on the CSSP website. The Settlement Agreement expressly includes nonprofits in the definition of entities who may recover pursuant to the settlement. The awards at issue were granted under the Business Economic Loss (BEL) framework. To recover under the BEL framework, a claimant must fall within one of twelve “Damage Categories” listed in § 1.3 of the Agreement. The Sealed Claimants recovered under the Economic Damage Category, which is summarized as encompassing “[l]oss of income, earnings or profits suffered by Natural Persons or Entities as a result of the DEEPWATER HORIZON INCIDENT.” To recover in this category, a claimant must meet one of the “causation requirements” in Exhibit 4B of the Agreement. Claimants can establish causation by showing various “revenue patterns.” If a claimant can show one of these revenue patterns, its compensation award is calculated under Exhibit 4C’s “compensation framework”; compensation is based on a comparison of its preand post-spill revenue. B. The Claims Administrator’s “Revenue” Interpretation This appeal stems from the Claims Administrator’s interpretation of “revenue” as it is used in Exhibits 4B and 4C of the Agreement. On November 30, 2012, the Claims Administrator determined that for nonprofit entities “grant monies or contributions shall typically be treated as revenue for the purposes of the . . . settlement agreement.” BP challenged this interpretation 2BP appealed this order in a related case (the Final Rules appeal), also decided today, and we ordered the district court to begin docketing the denials of discretionary review. See In re Deepwater Horizon, No. 13-30843 (5th Cir. 2015). 3 Case: 13-31296 Document: 00513036479 Page: 4 Date Filed: 05/08/2015 No. 13-31296 c/w Nos. 13-31299, 13-31302 in the district court, and the court affirmed the Claims Administrator on December 12, 2012, via an email to the parties. BP never directly appealed this decision. After the Nonprofit-Revenue Interpretation went into effect, the Sealed Claimants, each a nonprofit organization, counted donations and grants as revenue in their calculations, and received awards through the CSSP. • The Claimant in No.13-31296 (the Cy Pres Claimant) counted as revenue $331,395 in cy pres funds from a class action settlement. • The Claimant in No.13-31299 (the Grant Claimant) counted as revenue its receipt of a large, one-time “Trust Grant.” • The Claimant in No. 13-31302 (the Legal-Services Claimant) included $157,500 in revenue that was based on “legal services performed by its legal fellows.” BP appealed the awards all the way to the district court, which denied its motion for discretionary review. BP now appeals these denials of discretionary review. 3