Opinion ID: 2799729
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: Under the Settlement Agreement, class members may submit claims to the Settlement Program, overseen and managed by a Claims Administrator whose decisions may be reviewed upon request by an Appeal Panel. The Appeal Panel reviews, inter alia, briefs from the parties, the Settlement Agreement, relevant district court rulings, the claim file, the parties’ submissions, and the Claims Administrator’s decision. See Appeal Panel Rule 13 (Feb. 4, 2013) (“Appeal Panel Rules”), available at http://www.deepwaterhorizoneconomicsettlement.com/docs/Rules_Governing_ the_Appeals_Process_-_Final.pdf. The materials presented to the Claims Administrator and Appeal Panel are not posted to the district court’s civil docket but rather to a non-public Settlement Program website known as the DWH Portal. See, e.g., Appeal Panel Rules 10(b), 11(b), 15, 17, 18, 23. Redacted versions of Appeal Panel decisions are made available to the public through the Settlement Program website. Appeal Panel Rule 24. Appeals in which the 2 Case: 13-30843 Document: 00513036264 Page: 3 Date Filed: 05/08/2015 No. 13-30843 compensation amount is at issue go through a baseball arbitration process, 1 and the Appeal Panel decision is considered “final.” Agreement § 6.2. The Settlement Agreement confers “continuing and exclusive jurisdiction over the Parties and their Counsel for the purpose of enforcing, implementing and interpreting” the Agreement on “the Court.” Agreement § 18.1. The Agreement defines “Court” as “the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, Judge Carl Barbier, presiding.” Agreement § 38.40. The Settlement Agreement provides that “[t]he Court maintains the discretionary right to review any Appeal determination to consider whether the determination was in compliance with the Agreement. Upon reviewing such a determination, the Court shall treat the Appeal determination as if it were a recommendation by a Magistrate Judge.” Agreement § 6.6. Section 6 of the Settlement Agreement governs the claims appeal process. It leaves room for the Settlement Program to “establish additional procedures for the Appeal Process not inconsistent with Exhibit 25.” Agreement § 6.3. Exhibit 25, in turn, sets out procedures for filing and briefing appeals. Exhibit 25 allows the Appeals Coordinator, with the concurrence of the Claims Administrator, to “amend and/or adopt procedures as necessary to implement Section 6 of the Agreement after providing notice and a right to comment by the BP Parties and Lead Class Counsel.” Agreement, Exhibit 25. On April 29, 2013, the Claims Administrator released Draft Rules governing the district court’s review of Appeal Panel decisions, and BP responded with comments objecting to the Draft Rules’ limits on appellate 1 Under the baseball process, “the Claimant and the BP Parties exchange and submit in writing to the Appeal Panelist or Appeal Panel their respective proposals . . . for the base Compensation Amount they propose the Claimant should receive” and if the parties do not reach an agreement, “the Appeal Panelist or Appeal Panel must choose to award the Claimant either the Final Proposal by the Claimant or the Final Proposal by the BP Parties but no other amount.” Agreement § 6.2. 3 Case: 13-30843 Document: 00513036264 Page: 4 Date Filed: 05/08/2015 No. 13-30843 review by the Court of Appeals and the lack of provisions requiring documents and orders to be filed on the civil docket—similar arguments to the ones made in this appeal. Class Counsel also submitted comments. The Final Rules that were adopted by the district court through its May 20 Order are at issue before us. BP challenges the Final Rules for not providing for the docketing of requests for district court review or district court orders regarding such requests, which, it argues, compromises a right to appeal from the district court to this court and violates Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (“FRCP”) 79’s provisions regarding the clerk’s maintenance of the civil docket. Final Rule 12 states, “The Settlement Agreement provides no right of automatic appeal to the Court. Whether the determination of an Appeal Panel will be reviewed by the Court lies solely within the Court’s discretion. Review of an Appeal Panel determination will be granted only in exceptional circumstances.” Several provisions of the Final Rules implicate the question of whether there is a right to appeal claim determinations from the district court to this court under the Settlement Agreement. The Final Rules provide that requests for judicial review and related documents be posted to the DWH Portal rather than on the civil docket, and that the Appeals Coordinator be responsible for sending materials to and from the district court. See Final Rules 7, 8, 19, 21-22. BP also challenges the Final Rules for preventing it from seeking judicial review of certain categories of awards. Final Rule 16, which was not in the Draft Rules, provides that for certain cases, 2 “no Request or Objection may be submitted and the processing of claims will not be suspended in such cases unless there is a further order of the Court.” Under Final Rule 19, the Appeals Coordinator is not to submit any requests or objections for 2 These cases include those identified as “Contributions/Grant Revenue for NonProfits issue” (a.k.a. “Non-Profit Policy”), “Alternative Causation issue” (a.k.a. “Alternative Causation Policy”), or “Matching of Revenue and Expenses issue” (a.k.a. “Matching Policy”). 4 Case: 13-30843 Document: 00513036264 Page: 5 Date Filed: 05/08/2015 No. 13-30843 these cases to the district court. District court decisions are posted to the DWH Portal and in redacted form on the Settlement Program’s website. Final Rule 27. To challenge the Final Rules, on June 17, 2013, BP filed a motion under FRCP 59(e) to amend the May 20 Order and the Final Rules. BP requested the court to amend the Rules to clarify (1) “that all requests for discretionary review, objections thereto, and Court orders regarding such requests will be entered into the appropriate Court docket”; (2) that a party may file a request for discretionary review on issues previously ruled on by the Court, that such requests must contain a clear notation that they are governed by [Final] Rule 16, that such requests will be filed in the appropriate Court docket, and that the clerk will promptly enter an order denying such requests[;] and (3) “that a party filing a Request for Discretionary Review may append exhibits and attachments containing record evidence to requests for discretionary review.” 3 The district court denied BP’s motion on July 16, 2013, without elaboration, and BP then filed a Notice of Appeal on August 2, 2013, under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure (“FRAP”) 4(a)(4)(A)(iv). Class Counsel moved to dismiss the appeal. This court carried the motion to dismiss the appeal with the case. On September 4, 2013, the Appeals Coordinator notified BP that the district court had denied BP’s requests for review of three awards to non-profit organizations. In accordance with Final Rules 16 and 19, the district court did not docket the requests for review, the underlying record, or the orders denying review. These denials are the subject of the appeals in Nos. 13-31296, 13- 3According to BP, the Appeals Coordinator told BP via email that the district court would not accept requests that included any exhibits or documents attached. 5 Case: 13-30843 Document: 00513036264 Page: 6 Date Filed: 05/08/2015 No. 13-30843 31299, and 13-31302 (“Non-Profit Appeals”). Class Counsel and the Non-Profit Appeals claimants moved to dismiss those appeals. Because jurisdiction over the Non-Profit Appeals hinges on our decision with respect to the Final Rules and the availability of further review by this court of individual claim determinations that have been reviewed or denied review by the district court, we consolidated the three Non-Profit Appeals and directed all four cases to be heard and decided by the same panel. In this specific appeal, we address (1) whether we have jurisdiction over the appeal of the May 20 Order that approved the Final Rules, (2) whether there is a right to appeal claim determinations from the district court to this court under the Settlement Agreement, (3) whether the Final Rules violate any right to appeal under the Settlement Agreement, and (4) whether the district court erred in categorically precluding certain categories of cases from its review through the Final Rules.