Jeremy Doyle was retained by Huntsman Petrochemical LLC to recover damages that Huntsman suffered when a pipeline owned by Dow exploded and damaged two neighboring pipelines owned by Huntsman. When pre-suit settlement discussions failed, Huntsman filed a lawsuit and began discovery. The primary issue in dispute involved a number of damages. In addition to the hard cost to repair the pipeline, Huntsman sought to recover damages for decreased production from an olefins plant that was served by the pipeline damaged by the explosion. At the beginning of the case, the firm prepared a “but/for” lost profits damage model for the reduced profit earned by the plant during the days that the pipeline was out of service, and provided a copy of it to Dow. The case settled soon thereafter with Dow agreeing to pay approximately 80% of the total damages claimed by Huntsman.
