ID 100006076 v. BP Exploration & Prodn, I ( 2020 )

Case: 19-30917 Document: 00515553118 Page: 1 Date Filed: 09/04/2020
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
September 4, 2020
No. 19-30917 Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Claimant ID 100006076,
Request Parting—Appellant,
versus
BP Exploration & Production, Incorporated; BP
America Production Company; BP, P.L.C.,
Objecting Parties-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Louisiana
USDC No. 2:19-CV-12809
Before Owen, Chief Judge, and Dennis and Haynes, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
This case arises from the Deepwater Horizon Economic & Property
Damages Settlement Agreement (“Settlement Agreement”). The Appeal
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIRCUIT RULE 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5TH CIRCUIT RULE 47.5.4.
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Panel denied Claimant Glen Schooley claims as fraudulent, and the district
court denied discretionary review. We AFFIRM.
I.
Under the Settlement Agreement, claimants may recoup economic
losses that resulted from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. At the time
of the oil spill, Schooley worked as a real estate broker in Destin, Florida. In
2012, he filed Business Economic Loss claims totaling over $400,000 for
commissions lost on real estate transactions that allegedly failed to
materialize due to the spill. Relevant here, Schooley contended that two
specific contracts for real estate in Florida were never finalized as a direct
result of the spill: one for the purchase of undeveloped land and the other for
a shopping center.
The claims pertaining to these two contracts were investigated by the
Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Department of the Claims Administrator’s Office
(FWA), an entity setup under the Settlement Agreement to ensure the
integrity of the claims process. Under the rules governing the appeals
process for claims under the Settlement Agreement, “[t]he FWA will deny
claims where there is clear and compelling evidence that a claim contains
false, misleading, forged, or fabricated documents, information, or
statements material to the evaluation of the claim, which does not appear to
result solely from error or mistake.”
After interviewing multiple witnesses and considering the record, the
FWA denied Schooley’s claims, determining that the alleged real estate deals
“were not cancelled as a result of the Spill; rather, the sales were cancelled
due to a lack of funding of the purchaser.” The FWA also found that
Schooley “submitted fabricated documents which also contained forged
signatures” and that his submissions “simply could not have been the result
of error or mistake but were instead intentionally submitted by the Claimant
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in an attempt to deceive the Settlement Program into providing
compensation to which the Claimant was not otherwise entitled.” The FWA
denied Schooley’s request for reconsideration.
Schooley appealed to the Appeal Panel, which remanded the FWA’s
claim denial. The Appeal Panel explained that Schooley’s counsel “ha[d]
submitted what appear[ed] to be new information, including affidavits that
set out Claimant’s new counsel’s investigation into the fraud allegations.”
On remand, the FWA was unconvinced by the new information. It
noted, for instance, that it was unclear whether a new affidavit submitted by
Claimant’s counsel was genuine. The affidavit was purportedly signed by the
seller in the shopping center transaction, but the notarization and signatures
were contained on different pages. The notarization thus “could have been
added to any document” and did not support a finding that the seller had
executed the affidavit. The FWA also found that that the information
furnished by Schooley’s counsel was “misleading” and “directly
conflict[ed] with the in-person interviews” it had conducted In short, the
evidence “overwhelmingly” supported denying the claims as fraudulent.
The FWA therefore concluded that the “record clearly and compellingly
establishes that Claimant submitted intentionally and materially forged and
fabricated documents and misleading statements to create a claim where
there otherwise was none under the terms of the Settlement Agreement.”
Schooley again appealed to the Appeal Panel, which upheld the
FWA’s denial. The Appeal Panel summarized the FWA’s findings and
stated that, “[a]fter a complete review of the file it is clear the FWA
investigators are correct” that Schooley’s claims were based on fabricated
documents and forged signatures. In response to Claimant’s assertion that
FWA investigators intimidated witnesses, the Appeal Panel stated that “it is
not likely [that] four separate witnesses were all intimidated to the effect that
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they would submit sworn written statements asserting that the contracts at
issue were not executed by them.”
The district court denied Schooley’s request for discretionary review.
This appeal follows.
II.
We review the district court’s denial of discretionary review for abuse
of discretion. Claimant ID 100212278 v. BP Expl. & Prod., Inc., 848 F.3d 407,
410 (5th Cir. 2017). We emphasize that “under the Settlement Agreement”
the district court has discretion “to decide which cases to review.” In re
Deepwater Horizon, 785 F.3d 986, 999 (5th Cir. 2015). “[T]o turn the district
court’s discretionary review into a mandatory review . . . would frustrate the
clear purpose of the Settlement Agreement to curtail litigation.” Id.
That said, it is generally an abuse of discretion not to review a decision
that “actually contradicted or misapplied the Settlement Agreement, or had
the clear potential to” do so. Claimant ID 100212278, 848 F.3d at 410. On
the other hand, the district court does not abuse its discretion by denying a
request for review that “involves no pressing question of how the Settlement
Agreement should be interpreted or implemented, but simply raises the
correctness of a discretionary administrative decision in the facts of a single
claimant’s case.” Id. (cleaned up).
III.
Schooley contends that the district court abused its discretion in
denying discretionary review because the Appeal Panel failed to apply the
“clear and compelling” evidentiary standard for claims based on fraud and
therefore misapplied the Settlement Agreement. He points out that the
Appeal Panel did not expressly recite the applicable standard. But the FWA
repeatedly mentioned the burden of proof and found it was satisfied. And the
Appeal Panel determined that it was “clear” that the FWA was correct. That
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the Appeal Panel did not itself repeat the clear and compelling standard does
not constitute a misapplication of the Settlement Agreement when the FWA
did so, and the Appeal Panel reviewed the FWA’s determination and found
it to be correct.
Schooley’s other arguments that the Appeal Panel misapplied or may
have misapplied the evidentiary standard fare no better. He notes that,
despite his counsel’s arguments to the contrary, the Appeal Panel stated that
it is “not likely” that multiple witnesses were intimidated by FWA
investigators. Based on this passing remark, he contends that the Appeal
Panel may have applied a preponderance of the evidence standard rather than
the clear and compelling standard. This ignores the Appeal Panel’s overall
conclusion that the FWA was “correct” that the claims were based on
forgery and fabrication. And, as discussed, the FWA applied the proper
standard.
Schooley also observes that the Appeal Panel described the statements
of witnesses the FWA interviewed as being sworn when they were actually
unsworn. This factual error does not persuade us that Appeal Panel failed to
apply the relevant standard of proof.
The remainder of Schooley’s briefing is devoted to arguing the factual
and credibility determinations made by the FWA and the Appeal Panel.
Because these arguments are addressed to “the facts of a single claimant’s
case,” the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying review.
Claimant ID 100212278, 848 F.3d at 410. As explained above, the Settlement
Agreement grants the district court discretion “to decide which cases to
review.” In re Deepwater Horizon, 785 F.3d at 999.
IV.
For these reasons, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
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