SALLEY v. Transocean Holdings, Inc. et al

Filing 25

ORDER OF STAY - - re 9 Motion for stay, and 14 Joinder - - All future proceedings in this case are STAYED until further order of the court. The defendant BP America, Inc., will be required to file a written report with the cou rt on the status of the JPML proceedings on August 9, 2010, and every sixty days thereafter until such time as the motion to transfer is decided. - - (Status Report due by 9/8/2010. ) - - - Signed by District Judge M CASEY RODGERS on May 26, 2010. (cbj)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA PENSACOLA DIVISION

MICHAEL SALLEY, d/b/a Sure Shot Charters, Plaintiff, v. TRANSOCEAN, HOLDINGS, INC., et al., Defendants. / ORDER OF STAY This matter is before the court on the motion for stay of proceedings pending transfer to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (doc. 9) filed by BP America, Inc., BP Exploration & production, Inc., and BP Products of North America, Inc., joined by Haliberton Energy Services, Inc. (doc. 14). Plaintiff has not yet filed a response regarding to the requested stay. The court has carefully considered the positions of all parties, and so doing, finds the motion to stay well-taken. The interests of judicial economy, including the need to avoid duplicative litigation and conserve judicial resources, together with the hardship to the defendants' of having to separately defend in excess of eighty law suits in five different states1, many of which are filed as class actions, with the significant risk of inconsistent pretrial rulings, far outweigh the potential for prejudice to the plaintiffs from having a stay in place until the multidistrict litigation panel decides the transfer issue. Accordingly, all future proceedings in this case are STAYED until further order of the court. The defendant CASE NO.: 3:10cv133/MCR/MD

It is likely that the num ber of law suits in the Gulf Coast region will increase with tim e, as the im pact of the oil spill extends further east and west. As of this tim e, seventeen law suits have been filed in this district and assigned to six different judges, five of them to the undersigned.

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BP America, Inc., will be required to file a written report with the court on the status of the JPML proceedings on August 9, 2010, and every sixty days thereafter until such time as the motion to transfer is decided. DONE and ORDERED this 26th day of May, 2010.

s/

M. Casey Rodgers

M. CASEY RODGERS UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

Case No.: 3:10cv133/MCR/MD