## Facts

- The Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, 2010, causing a massive oil discharge in the Gulf of Mexico.
- Federal authorities declared the incident a spill of national significance, triggering the Clean Water Act spill-response framework and the National Contingency Plan (NCP).
- The Federal On-Scene Coordinator (FOSC) implemented the NCP and authorized use of Corexit, a chemical dispersant manufactured by Nalco Company.
- Corexit was listed on the NCP Product Schedule and preauthorized for potential use in spill response under federal regulations.
- A group of personal-injury claimants in the MDL (the “B3 bundle”), including cleanup workers and coastal residents, alleged injuries from exposure to oil and dispersants (including Corexit and oil-dispersant mixtures).
- The B3 plaintiffs asserted state-law and general maritime-law claims against Nalco, including negligence and product-liability theories alleging Corexit was toxic and defective.
- Nalco supplied Corexit but did not direct or control whether, when, where, or how Corexit was used; those decisions were made by federal officials led by the FOSC.

## Issues

1. Whether the Clean Water Act and the NCP preempt or displace state-law and general maritime-law tort claims seeking to impose liability on a dispersant manufacturer for harms tied to the federally directed use of an NCP-listed dispersant.
2. Whether a manufacturer can be held liable under state or maritime law where the challenged dispersant use resulted from FOSC authorization and federal command over spill-response operations.

## Decision

- The court granted Nalco’s motion to dismiss the B3 plaintiffs’ claims against Nalco arising from exposure to Corexit used in the federally directed response.
- The court treated the federal spill-response regime as assigning exclusive operational control to the federal government (through the FOSC) for response decisions, including dispersant selection and application.
- The court concluded that allowing the asserted state and maritime tort claims would conflict with the federal command-and-control structure governing the response and would effectively permit collateral challenges to federally directed choices.

## Legal Principles

- When federal law vests spill-response command in the federal government through the FOSC under the Clean Water Act and the NCP, state-law and general maritime-law claims that would second-guess federally directed response decisions may be barred by federal preemption or displacement.
- Use of a response agent listed on the NCP Product Schedule and applied pursuant to FOSC authorization supports treating claims attacking that use as incompatible with the federal response framework.
- A manufacturer’s lack of authority over operational response decisions weighs against imposing tort liability where the complained-of conduct is the federal government’s selection and direction of response tools.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed personal-injury tort claims against the Corexit manufacturer because federal law placed dispersant-use decisions for the national-significance spill under exclusive federal control, and the claims would have imposed state or maritime standards on federally authorized response actions.


In re Oil Spill by the Oil Rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico, on April 20, 2010, No. 10-2179, 2012 WL 5960192 (E.D. La. Nov. 28, 2012)