The revelation that BP's Texas City refinery emitted toxic benzene for more than a month has ignited a furor in the port community that has suffered its share of deadly industrial accidents and toxic spills.

Thousands of residents who fear they may have been exposed to the known carcinogen released at the oil refinery from April 6 to May 16 have been flooding parking lots and conference halls where local trial attorneys hosted information sessions and sought clients for class-action lawsuits against the oil giant.

BP faces the new challenge just as it is reaching a key milestone in another crisis — plugging the Gulf of Mexico well that blew out in an oil spill disaster that is costing the company billions of dollars.

On Wednesday, more than 3,400 people lined the hallways and sidewalks around the Nessler Center to sign on to a $10 billion class-action lawsuit filed Tuesday in Galveston federal court by Friendswood attorney Anthony Buzbee.

The lawsuit alleges the release of 500,000 pounds of chemicals - including 17,000 pounds of benzene - has jeopardized the health and property values of people who live and work in the area. At the nearby College of the Mainland, a separate town hall meeting drew a crowd of 600.

"I've never seen anything like this," Buzbee said, looking at the lines waiting to enter a large room at the civic center where lawyers helped people fill out paperwork. "I can't believe this is mass hysteria and that everybody here is a faker," Buzbee said.

Webster-based lawyer Chad Pinkerton said he's met with about 8,000 residents over the past week. "I believe this is probably the largest prolonged release in Texas history and many, many people are sick," he said.

Word of the lawsuits spread this week, propelled in part by rumors that BP was cutting checks to head off the benzene claims from the $20 billion fund established to pay claims related to the oil spill.

Wal-Mart asked the Supreme Court Wednesday to throw out a class-action lawsuit against it that the retailer says is the largest employment suit ever.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in April that Wal-Mart should face charges in court that it pays women less than men for the same jobs. The lawsuit, which covers all female workers at Wal-Mart since 1998, could cost the company billions if it loses.

"It's an extremely significant case," says former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission general counsel Eric Dreiband, who is not involved in the lawsuit. "The rights of millions of women are at stake."

Wal-Mart, the world's largest private employer, says the case raises serious issues about procedures governing class-action lawsuits.

"The class is larger than the active-duty personnel in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard combined — making it the largest employment class action in history by several orders of magnitude," Wal-Mart argued in its petition to the Supreme Court.

A $10 billion toxic tort class action lawsuit has been filed against BP over alleged emissions from its troubled Texas City oil refinery, alleging that workers and residents in the area were exposed to benzene and other chemicals.  
More than 2,200 workers at the refinery and residents from the surrounding area filed the BP class action lawsuit on August 3 in the Galveston Division of the Southern District of Texas. The complaint alleges that for 40 days earlier this year, the company illegally released the chemical benzene into the atmosphere.

The benzene lawsuit comes just as BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, was finally able to stop the flow of oil from a well a mile under the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, which has caused a massive oil spill that is expected to cost the company tens of billions of dollars in oil spill lawsuits and clean up costs.

Plaintiffs in the BP Texas City refinery class action lawsuit say the company has been releasing benzene into the atmosphere at the plant due to a hydrogen compressor that broke down on April 6. The 2,212 plaintiffs allege that they suffered serious injuries and illnesses from benzene exposure.

Benzene is an industrial chemical that has been linked to the development of cancer, leukemia and other life-threatening health problems. It is a known carcinogen used as an industrial solvent in the production of plastic and synthetic rubber, as well as drugs and dyes.

BP’s Texas City Refinery is the third-largest oil refinery in the United States, and has been the subject of several major safety incidents. As recently as September, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration hit BP with an $87.4 million fine for not complying with a safety agreement made after a March 23, 2005 explosion and fire that killed 15 workers and injured more than 170 others.

In February 2009, BP Products North America agreed to pay $180 million to resolve a separate environmental lawsuit over benzene emissions at the oil refinery. That case involved violations of a 2001 consent decree and Clean Air regulations which were identified during inspections by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) following the March 2005 blast.

Under the terms of that settlement, BP agreed to spend $161 million to address their Clean Air Act violations by setting up better pollution controls, enhanced maintenance and monitoring devices and improving their internal management practices. Another $6 million was designated to fund a project to reduce air pollution in Texas City and $12 million was paid as a penalty.

GlaxoSmithKline Plc agreed to pay about $460 million to resolve a majority of lawsuits alleging the company’s Avandia diabetes drug can cause heart attacks and strokes, people familiar with the accords said.

Glaxo, the U.K.’s biggest drugmaker, agreed to settle about 10,000 suits for an average of at least $46,000 apiece, the people said. The company had been facing more than 13,000 suits alleging Glaxo hid the drug’s heart-attack risk, according to a UBS AG analyst. The settlements come as Glaxo is set to face its first Avandia trial in federal court in Philadelphia in October.

“This is exceptionally good news given the market has discounted $6 billion liability,” for Avandia litigation, Gbola Amusa, an analyst at UBS in London, said in an interview. “We had outlined an absolute worst-case scenario where $500,000 per case would have to be paid.”

Glaxo, the U.K.’s largest drugmaker, is settling Avandia claims as a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel is meeting today to consider whether Avandia’s ability to control blood-sugar levels outweighs a possible increase in heart attacks, strokes and deaths from cardiovascular disease. Mary Anne Rhyne, a spokeswoman for Glaxo, declined to comment.

A Montgomery law firm has filed a lawsuit against BP, Halliburton and Cameron International for a commercial landowner in Baldwin County.

Beasley Allen Crow Methvin Portis and Miles PC filed the suit on behalf of James E. Fisher and Kate C. Fisher, who own commercially zoned land in Baldwin County, according to a press release.

According to Beasley Allen, the Fishers have incurred damages to their property, earning capacity, business income and use of natural resources due to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“Falling real estate values are just one more consequence of this environmental disaster,” said Rhon Jones, head of Beasley Allen’s Environmental Law section. “People who have purchased property as an investment, or who are simply trying to sell their home will be negatively affected by this oil spill. Even property that is not Gulf-front is impacted by the perception that the entire Gulf Coast has been ruined.”

Beasley Allen has filed several lawsuits in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. They filed a class action lawsuit in April to recoup losses for individuals and business owners on the Gulf Coast. They also filed a lawsuit in June on behalf of scuba company Adventure Sports II and cases for a commercial fisherman and fishing deckhand who work in the Gulf’s waters.

BP has set up a $20 billion compensation fund to cover claims from individuals and businesses impacted by the oil spill that has leaked oil into the Gulf of Mexico and reached the shoreline.

The Canadian law firm ‘Merchant Law Group’ has launched a high profile class action suit against Facebook over the social network allegedly breaching the privacy of its users.

Tony Merchant Q.C stated Friday that “this claim asserts that Facebook shamelessly breached the privacy of people who trusted it.”

Facebook has had a number of legal problems over its privacy policies in recent times – On February 4, 2009, without proper communication to or agreement by its Users, Facebook revised its Terms of Service, asserting broad, permanent, and retroactive intentions to reveal Users’ information, even as to Users who deleted their Facebook.com accounts. The Company stated it could make public a User’s “name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising.” Having met with numerous objections from Users and after being threatened with action by U.S. federal government regulators, Facebook withdrew the proposed changes.

This latest claim alleges that the tools provided by Facebook to Users of the social network are materially misleading and calculated to result in unauthorized breaches of Users privacy and conversion of their personal information, including but not limited to the breach of Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act., 2000, c. 5. and other breaches of statute and common law.