American Leadership to BP: Now Look at What You Made Me Do

The Obama administration suggested that BP should be financially responsible for paying the lost wages of oil industry worked idled by the administration's moratorium on off-shore drilling, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

As a legal principle, it is very unlikely that this has any precedent in common law. Assigning liability to a defendant for the plaintiff's self-chosen actions is rarely credible, and is against common sense.

If the effort succeeds, expect an avalanche of similar "they made me decide this way, I couldn't help it" legal actions, including an expanded tort system. The judicial system will need to expand significantly to handle the increased case load.

Example: A teenager hangs herself because of a bully at school. The parents of the teenager could be tried for murder because they failed to raise the bully properly to be respectful of others.

For more, see the outstanding article at the Daily Mail:
Cameron at odds with Tories as he refuses to publicly back BP after Tebbit and Boris attack Obama's 'anti-British' rhetoric

You could also see the U.S. reaction partly in Tech Ticker's comment on the Daily Mail article:
England Is Now Freaking Out About The U.S. Reaction To BP


Although the British reaction is overdone (there is nothing anti-British about U.S. anger over the oil spill, especially among those in displaced industries), the administration's redneck mentality about seizure of corporate assets is guaranteed to be perceived as threatening to the British. Deliberately destroying goodwill with alliance partners is against American interests.