Carl Joseph Barbier (born August 21, 1944) is a

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state. There is at least one feder ...

of the

United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana (in case citations, E.D. La.) is a United States federal court based in New Orleans. Appeals from the Eastern District of Louisiana are taken to the United States Court of A ...

Education and career

Born in 1944 in

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

, Barbier attended West Jefferson High School before receiving a

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

degree from

Southeastern Louisiana University Southeastern Louisiana University (Southeastern) is a public university in Hammond, Louisiana. It was founded in 1925 by Linus A. Sims as Hammond Junior College. Sims succeeded in getting the campus moved to north Hammond in 1928, when it beca ...

in 1966 and a

Juris Doctor A Juris Doctor, Doctor of Jurisprudence, or Doctor of Law (JD) is a graduate-entry professional degree that primarily prepares individuals to practice law. In the United States and the Philippines, it is the only qualifying law degree. Other j ...

from Loyola University New Orleans School of Law in 1970. He was a

law clerk A law clerk, judicial clerk, or judicial assistant is a person, often a lawyer, who provides direct counsel and assistance to a lawyer or judge by Legal research, researching issues and drafting legal opinions for cases before the court. Judicial ...

to Judge William Redman,

Louisiana Court of Appeal The Louisiana Circuit Courts of Appeal are the intermediate appellate courts for the state of Louisiana. There are five circuits, each covering a different group of parishes. Each circuit is subdivided into three districts. As with the Louis ...

, Fourth Circuit from 1969 to 1970, and to Judge Fred James Cassibry of the

from 1970 to 1971. Barbier was in private practice in New Orleans from 1971 to 1998.

Federal judicial service

On May 19, 1998, Barbier was nominated by President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician and lawyer who was the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, ...

to a seat on the

vacated by Okla Jones II. Barbier was confirmed by the

United States Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

on September 28, 1998, and received his commission on October 1, 1998. Barbier assumed senior status on January 1, 2023.

Notable cases

In August 2010, he was appointed to hear the cases in the

Deepwater Horizon oil spill The ''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill was an environmental disaster off the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico, on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. It is considered the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum in ...

. It is expected that at least 300 cases will be consolidated in his court. On November 14, 2011, Barbier ruled that BP, the company that leased the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, must face federal maritime lawsuits by Alabama and Louisiana. On September 4, 2014, he further found BP to be grossly negligent in the spill, attributing 67% of the blame to the company. As a result, the company may be liable for as much as $18 billion in fines under the

Clean Water Act The Clean Water Act (CWA) is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution. Its objective is to restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters; recognizing the primary respo ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Barbier, Carl Joseph 1944 births Living people Judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana United States district court judges appointed by Bill Clinton Lawyers from New Orleans Southeastern Louisiana University alumni Loyola University New Orleans College of Law alumni 20th-century United States federal judges 21st-century United States federal judges