The Gulf of Mexico oil spill, already the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, may soon launch one of the largest and costliest legal battles ever.

Lela Hollabaugh, a complex litigation attorney in Nashville, said that unless there is a quick settlement, no trials will begin until 2015 and it will be at least 2028 until the issues are fully resolved. After all, it took 20 years for all the claims to be settled after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.

"When you're looking at an incident like this, which has so many different parties in different states, you just simply can't get through the litigation quickly," Hollabaugh said. "It just takes a long time to move through the process."

So far, more than 300 federal lawsuits have been filed in 12 states. The plaintiffs range from shrimpers to condo owners to the owners of Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, all claiming economic losses from the spill. There have also been wrongful death and injury suits filed by relatives of the 11 men who died when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20. Some BP investors are even suing because of the dip in BP's stock price.

The suits target BP PLC and three other companies involved in the Deepwater Horizon rig: Transocean Ltd., Halliburton Co. and Cameron International, which made the blowout preventer.

There is no estimate of the potential damages BP will face, but the legal costs alone will total $2 billion, legal experts say. The company has set aside a $20 billion fund to pay for cleanup costs and spill claims, but many think that will hardly be enough.

A federal judiciary panel will meet this week to decide whether to consolidate the suits for pretrial decisions before a single judge. The company could face a massive settlement to affected residents and businessmen, like the $500 million payout from the Exxon Valdez case (Curt Anderson, AP/Yahoo News, July 27). -- JP