Yeah, been offline a few days. Well, a week to be exact and boy, has my re-entry into social work been a major headache. Got pulled over early this morning, while I was working…that adult crisis job I do which helps enable the police of my town to spend less time in emergency rooms dealing with mental health and AODA issues and more time on the streets, doing whatever it is they do, like pulling over adult crisis workers and giving them hefty tickets for a minor mistake… while I was en route to a hospital, but no, I’m not bitter…

Just patient.

Patient until the cop who wrote the ticket needs something from me in an ER, and it will eventually happen, and then we’ll just have to wait and see how that plays itself out…but I digress, so…

Feinberg.

Kenneth Feinberg.

Been away a week now so what’s going on in Feinberg land?

Well, it would appear Ken is still having fun playing Monty Hall in the oil spill version of “Let’s Make a Deal.” Added to the usual claimant gamble of accepting a final payment from the GCCF when the future environmental impact of the spill remains unknown, and also signing that waiver forbidding the claimant from recouping any more damages, ever…Feinberg continues to mess with the heads of those filing for interim claims by saying “at some point,” final claims payments will be reduced.

The implied message being, sure, you can continue to get a payment every three months without waiving your right to sue British Petroleum, but you might get what’s behind door number three, a baby goat, in the form of lower final payment offer down the road…so that’s the risk you run. Take the money now, or perhaps later…take nothing.

Spoken like a true advocate of the Gulf Coast people.

Oh, and who decides if those final payments get lowered, and by how much?

I would imagine that to be a certain Ken Feinberg, British Petroleum employee extraordinaire, and the fact of the matter is, putting pressure on claimants, either direct or indirect to be over and done with the GCCF will primarily benefit British Petroleum in the form of those signed no-sue waivers, which bar claimants from any more financial compensations should a hurricane stir up the oil, or the Macondo Well be found to be leaking, or environmental problems continue, cancer rates spike, any host of things, really.  The last thing BP needs is a bunch of claimants waiting around with the ability to still sue the company. Such a headache. Twenty years later in Prince William Sound, environmental damage is still very evident a la Exxon Valdez. Twenty years? Not this time, that’s seventeen years after 2013, that being the year Ken has declared, in his infinite Boston Legal wisdom, this GCCF game show will end. The fact environmental studies won’t be nearly complete by then, thus potentially leaving thousands in the lurch?

Details…

It’s good to be the Ken!

It’s reported these final claims payments could be adjusted as soon as November of this year, which will be the next time the methodology is reviewed.  So all you claimants out there, ya better pick door number 1, 2 or 3 and make it fast before Feinberg shuts the show down completely.

Let’s see…what else…

Oh, last week Judge Barbier issued a 39 page ruling where he dealt a few blows to Ken Feinberg and British Petroleum.  Barbier ruled the complaints against BP fell under Maritime law and OPA (Oil Pollution Act), not state law, thus unlike Ken Feinberg’s GCCF, Maritime law will allow for punitive damages. Barbier also took an expansive view of the claims that could fall under OPA,  “The Court notes that OPA does not expressly require ‘proximate cause,’ but rather only that the loss is ‘due to’ or ‘resulting from’ the oil spill,” Barbier wrote. “OPA causation may lie somewhere between traditional ‘proximate cause’ and simple ‘but for’ causation.” So, unlike Ken Feinberg’s GCCF, this means that people with economic damage as a result of their enrollment in the Vessels of Opportunity Program, and people who lost work/wages as a result of the oil drilling moratorium are allowed to bring their complaints for damages in court.

So, that’s a good thing…and, um, oh yeah…

Like all things corporate, Ken Feinberg continues to fail upwards.

Though criticized for his handling of the 9-11 fund, he got the gig doing British Petroleum’s GCCF, and though criticized for his handling of the GCCF, he will now help the Indiana State Fair with their stage collapse fund. And he’ll do it for free and why shouldn’t he? British Petroleum has been and will continue to make him a very wealthy man…you know, helping British Petroleum make many, many people really, really, really whole…and besides, it’s not like Ken has anything else to do…

Especially since all these oil slicks they keep finding in the Gulf, they have nothing to do with the Macondo Well.

Certainly not.

We know this because British Petroleum said so, and they most certainly would not steer anyone in the Gulf wrong, or…okay, maybe they would…

And, that’s the phone…the crisis phone…

Okay then, it turns out my patience has paid off…and I need to get off the computer now, get to the emergency room.

It seems a certain police officer from early this morning is at the hospital with someone who may need an emergency detention, the client has suicidal thoughts…just have to wait and see if the Chapter 51 is necessary. I’ll know it when I do the interview, but if that person does need to be detained to a hospital, well…part of my job is choosing which hospital and that might not be good for the officer. Some hospitals are twenty minutes away. Some are three hours… and recently, I heard someone express that like it or not, the Gulf Coast needs Ken Feinberg right now. I agree, but like with the police in my town, just because we need them, doesn’t necessarily give them the right to do a poor job, do things like write tickets they shouldn’t, or force Gulf Coast residents to gamble with their futures. When they do things like that, sometimes it can turn around and bite them in the ass.

So, here’s hoping the officer who wrote me the ticket, who’ll be doing the transporting is patient too, because if my client does need to be detained to a hospital, I may just decide the officer will be going on a long, long drive…taking the client to a hospital far, far away…

We’ll see…

Have a nice day.