BALDWIN SCHOOLS HIRE CUNNINGHAM BOUNDS TO HANDLE $4.4 MILLION BP CLAIM (PRESS-REGISTER)
Dec 20, 2010
By: Connie Baggett
BAY MINETTE, Alabama — Baldwin County Board of Education members
have hired Mobile law firm Cunningham Bounds to pursue collection of a
$4.4 million claim for lost revenue against BP PLC as a result of the
Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
“We can’t lose,” said board member Robert Wills, who
is an attorney.
The board selected Cunningham Bounds after hearing presentations from
the Mobile firm and from the Beasley Allen Firm of Montgomery.
School system spokesman Terry Wilhite said no fee had been set for the work.
Orange Beach City Council hired the same firm last month to pursue its
claims if negotiations with the oil company don’t progress. Any
time the city requests assistance from the attorneys, the law firm would
receive 15 percent of a claim payment, and that cut would jump to 25 percent
if a legal proceeding occurs, according to the proposed deal. The firm
would not receive any money for claims already paid.
School board officials filed a $4.4 million claim with BP weeks ago seeking
lost revenue from the months tourism was adversely impacted by the oil
spill. The figure came from calculations conducted by Keivan Deravi, an
expert in revenue forecasting with Auburn University at Montgomery.
“Obviously we are pleased to be selected and look forward to pursuing
the responsible parties to be sure the school board recovers its losses,”
said Stephen L. Nicholas, an attorney with Cunningham Bounds. “Our
next step will be a complete evaluation of what the board has already
done to determine its losses and work with BP to recover that amount.”
The system was already mired in a financial crisis when the oil rig exploded
April 20, spilling an estimated 172 million gallons of light crude into
the Gulf of Mexico. The slick eventually made its way onto beaches and
marshlands along the coast, killing wildlife and Alabama’s lucrative
tourism industry for most of the peak season. Many local officials had
projected tourism would rebound from down years during the economic downturn
before the spill.