A class of plaintiffs injured by the May 19, 2015 Plains oil pipeline rupture and oil spill near Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County have filed a motion for class certification. (Keith Andrews, et. al. vs. Plains All American Pipeline, L.P., Case No. 2:15-CV-04113-PSG-JEM, U.S. District Court, Central District of Calif., August 22, 2016) Plains owns and controls the [ More... ]
Firm partners A. Barry Cappello and Leila Noël will be speaking at the 2016 Special Assets Management Association (SAMA) Conference, Thursday, June 2 in La Jolla. Their topic is “The Latest in Lender Liability.” Joining them will be Joel Berman, partner with Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP.SAMA is a professional trade association serving loan workout professionals.Their talk will be [ More... ]
Santa Barbara, Calif. (May 9, 2016)—Property owners that have easement agreements allowing Plains All American to run its oil pipelines on their property have filed a class action lawsuit against the company. The lawsuit is seeking a preliminary and permanent injunction ordering Plains to repair and improve its corroded pipelines in Santa Barbara County so they operate within the parameters [ More... ]
Cappello & Noël participated in the April 21, 2016 federal court hearing regarding the Volkswagen emission scandal. The hearing lasted just 15 minutes. Clearly, most of the details still are missing from the proposed settlement, and the Court made it clear that these details still needed fleshing out. We are monitoring the matter closely. Once we have all the necessary [ More... ]
Firm partner Leila Noël was named one of 2016’s “Top 50 Women in Business” by the Pacific Coast Business Times. The honor recognizes the outstanding female business leaders in San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. Previously, she was named one of 2011’s “Top 75 Women Litigators” in California and one of the “Top 100 Women Lawyers” in California [ More... ]
Firm at center of Refugio spill must change its message to victims By SCOTT STEEPLETON, NEWS-PRESS CITY EDITOR March 8, 2016 Roughnecks, property owners, commercial fishermen and others who claim damages stemming from the Refugio oil spill made some headway in their federal class-action suit, convincing a judge in Los Angeles that portions of their case should move forward. At [ More... ]
On March 3, 2016, a U.S. District Court judge invalidated the settlement releases that Plains All American Pipeline required claimants to sign during its claims process. The court found that Plains was attempting “to steer those victims towards unwittingly waiving their rights to full recovery” available to them through the class action filed after the company’s May 19, 2015 oil [ More... ]
By Alex Kacik / Thursday, February 25th, 2016 A U.S. district judge denied Plains All American Pipeline’s request to put a six-month hold on the class-action lawsuit stemming from the Refugio oil spill. Judge Philip Gutierrez issued an order on Feb. 25 that denied Plains’ motion because Plains did not make a clear case on how a delay, or [ More... ]
This year marks the 30th anniversary of Leila Noël as an attorney with the firm. She started as a 2-year associate and quickly advanced in her career by successfully helping countless individuals and small businesses with their litigation matters. Eventually, she became a name partner. In addition, the Daily Journal selected her as one of the Top 75 Women Litigation [ More... ]
By Gina Potthoff, Noozhawk Staff Writer | @ginapotthoff | Published on 02.16.2016 6:46 p.m. Santa Barbara County’s legal counsel doesn’t have a response for a local attorney’s implied intent to file a lawsuit if officials allow the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians to annex land without going through certain planning channels. Well-known Santa Barbara attorney Barry Cappello promised county [ More... ]
