This motion, filed on Mardi Gras in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, is a “metaphorical request for a ride on the streetcar named remand.” Its author, Lance Lubel of Lubel Voyles LLP (on behalf of Buddy Trahan, who was aboard the Deepwater Horizon at the time of its catastrophe), produced five pages of quirky, metaphor-laden pleadings related to his case against BP, seeking damages for the horrific injuries he suffered at the time. He cites Bob Dylan, Franz Kafka, Binx Bolling, and many other legal authorities. It really sounds like Trahan got a raw deal, and there’s a lot of bravery and charm in this doc. I wish him the best of luck.
When queried by his Aunt how none of the values she had tried to impart meant anything to him, Binx Bolling replied: “My objections, though they are not exactly objections, cannot be expressed in the usual way. To tell the truth, I can’t express them at all.” Walker Percy, The Moviegoer (First Vintage International Edition, April 1998), at 224-25. Unlike Binx Bolling, Buddy Trahan can–and did–express his objections to the treatment he feared from the courts. What is more, he expressed those objections in the usual way to the Southern District of Texas, to the JPML, and to this Court. All that was for naught and Buddy Trahan fears that his time is running out. He therefore expresses his objections in what some might deem an unconventional manner. But as the Chief Justice has observed, “”[w]hen you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Sprint Communications Co., L.P. v. APCC Services, Inc., 554 U.S. 269, 301 (2008) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting), quoting Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965). Accordingly, Buddy Trahan respectfully requests that the Court (i) take this missive in the spirit in which it is intended, (ii) lift the moratorium on deciding motions to remand, (iii) give Buddy Trahan his much-needed and well-deserved ride on the metaphorical Streetcar Named Remand, and (iv) remand this case to Texas state court.
According to Lowering the Bar, the motion was denied.
(Image: Deepwater Horizon Offshore Drilling Platform on Fire, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from ideum’s photostream)