ID 100110725 v. BP Exploration & Production, Inc.
ID 100110725 v. BP Exploration & Production, Inc.
Opinion of the Court
The appellant is a hotel that filed Business Economic Loss claims under the Deepwater Horizon Economic and Property Damages Settlement Agreement. The hotel challenges the district court’s denial of discretionary review of an Appeal Panel decision denying its initial claim. Because the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to review the claim, we AFFIRM.
I.
This case arises from the BP Settlement Agreement involving the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. LHS Pensacola #4 Inc. (“the Hotel”) operates a line of budget hotels that were allegedly harmed by the oil spill, but which are far enough away from the spill to require a causation showing to recover from BP under the Agreement. This appeal specifically involves the Howard Johnson Hotel, in Pensacola, Florida.
The Hotel submitted its claim against BP in 2012. On the claim form, the Hotel marked “no” when asked whether “specific market changes outside [its] control” prevented it from regaining its pre-spill revenue. The CSSP denied this claim for failure to provide supporting documentation for the declining revenue. The Hotel submitted a request for a re-review; after re-review, the CSSP affirmed its denial of the claim because of insufficient documentation. The Hotel requested re-consideration of the denial, and the CSSP again affirmed denial of the claim for the same reason.
The Hotel then appealed the denial to a CSSP Appeal Panel. It argued that it had initially marked “no” about whether “specific market changes outside [its] control” prevented it from regaining its pre-spill revenue because it believed this was a question about an additional factor causing revenue to stay low, and it believed it had already passed one of the tests for compensation. The Hotel also submitted a report on hotels in the Florida panhandle that it alleged provided “independent verification of a new competitor.” The report shows that two hotels opened in the Pensacola region in 2011 and that various hotels were sold in 2011, but it does not identify the two hotels that opened and does not describe what happened to the three hotels that were sold.
The Appeal Panel requested additional information, which the Appeals Coordinator (an administrative employee separate from the Appeal Panel) provided in a Summary of Review to the Panel on April 5, 2016. The Summary of Review answered one of the Panelist’s questions and provided an overview of the earlier proceedings in the case. Id. The Appeals Coordinator informed counsel it could respond to the Summary of Review (but only to correct
II.
We review the district court’s denial of discretionary review for abuse of discretion.
III.
The Hotel offers two main reasons that the district court should have reviewed its claim: (1) the Appeal Panel violated the terms of the Agreement by deciding the case based solely on the Summary of Review; and (2) the Appeal Panel erred by denying the Hotel’s claim.
A.
First, the Hotel argues that the Appeal Panel violated Rule 21 of the Rules Governing the Appeals Process by basing
B.
Second, the Hotel argues that the Appeal Panel erred by determining that it had not provided “[s]pecific documentation identifying factors outside [its] control ... that prevented the recovery of revenues in 2011,” such as “entry of a competitor in 2011.” According to the Hotel, the Panel deviated from the terms of the Settlement Agreement by interpreting this as a requirement to provide definitive proof that a competitor entered the immediate vicinity of the claimant in 2011 or that competitors developed new hotels and rooms in 2011. However, the Panel’s decision does not articulate such a requirement. Instead, it finds that the report on which the Hotel relied was insufficient evidence of new competition because it showed that new hotel development in the area declined in 2011 and did not show that any new hotels or hotels that changed ownership began competing for the Hotel’s target clientele in 2011. Thus, the Hotel’s argument ultimately turns on “the correctness of a discretionary administrative decision in the facts of a single claimant’s case,” Sexton, 641 Fed.Appx. at 410, and does not show that the Panel’s determination “actually contradicted or misapplied the Settlement Agreement,” Holmes Motors, 829 F.3d at 315. Therefore, the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to review the Panel’s determination.
IV.
Because the district court’s denial of discretionary review does not constitute an abuse of discretion, we AFFIRM.
Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 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 Cir. R. 47.5.4.
. The CEO of LHS simultaneously submitted a Business Economic Loss (BEL) claim on behalf of LHS and six other corporations that owned and operated hotels around Pensacola and the Gulf Coast. Only the claim for the Howard Johnson Hotel is at issue here, so "the Hotel” refers to LHS as the claimant for the Howard Johnson Hotel in Pensacola.
. The Hotel argues for de novo review, asserting that each issue turns on contract interpretation. However, we dispose of each issue without resolving any disputed contract interpretation.
. Instead of arguing in the abuse of discretion paradigm, the Hotel argues its claims on the merits. We only have jurisdiction over the district court’s final decision, see 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and are unable to review the substantive determination of the Appeal Panel. See Claimant ID 100250022 v. BP Expl. & Prod., Inc., 847 F.3d 167, 170 (5th Cir. 2017).
.The Hotel also argues that the Panel violated its due process rights and Rule 13(f) of the Rules Governing the Appeals Process by issuing its decision only two days after the Appeals Coordinator told the Hotel it had ten days to respond to the Summary of Review. Assuming arguendo that this was a procedural error, it was harmless in light of the Hotel's failure to provide the documentation required by the decline-only test. See Part III.B, infra.
. Rule 21 reads in relevant part: "The Standard of Review by the ... Appeal Panel shall be a de novo review of the complete record of that Claimant in the Settlement Program to enforce compliance with the Settlement Agreement as approved by the Court.”
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.