ELR Citation: ELR 20046
No(s). 08-1291 (S.D. Tex. Feb 11, 2009)

A district court held that an oil company is entitled to a jury trial in the government's Oil Pollution Act (OPA) case against it for cleanup costs and damages stemming from a 2004 oil spill. The recovery of removal costs under OPA constitutes an equitable remedy. The company, therefore, is not entitled to a jury trial on the basis of this remedy alone. The government, however, also seeks recovery for natural resource damages, and at least one component of natural resource damages—the diminution in value of those natural resources—is legal in nature. It amounts to compensating a plaintiff for injury to its property, much like damages recovered in nuisance or trespass, both of which are classic legal causes of action. Thus, the company's right to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment is triggered by this one legal component of the natural resource damages remedy. And because this component of the natural resource damage remedy is legal, it renders other underlying factual issues legal in nature such that they must be tried to the jury, even if they are also relevant to equitable components of the remedy.