Buddy Trahan Needs a Ride

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The beginning of a motion filed in Louisiana on February 21, 2012:

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA 

IN RE: OIL SPILL by the OIL RIG 
"DEEPWATER HORIZON"                                    MDL 2179

THIS DOCUMENT RELATES TO:
TRAHAN v. BP p.l.c., et al.

 

BUDDY TRAHAN'S METAPHORICAL REQUEST FOR
A RIDE ON THE STREETCAR NAMED REMAND 

I.  BUDDY TRAHAN'S BIG EASY BLUES

    Buddy Trahan needs a ride. He needs that ride every bit as much as he needed the help and kindness of strangers to escape the inferno aboard the Deepwater Horizon. Having survived that disaster catastrophically injured but alive, he is now in a first circle of waiting from which there is but one avenue of escape. That avenue is remand, but remand has been closed to Buddy Trahan for a long, long time. And so, like a beleaguered passenger who fruitlessly waits for a streetcar that will not come, Buddy Trahan has waited, and waited, and waited some more to be transported back to state court in Houston so that he may begin anew his long-derailed journey to justice. Yes, Buddy Trahan needs a ride, and he needs a ride on, as it were, the streetcar named remand. In sheer exhaustion from his torturous ordeal, he respectfully–but stridently–requests that the Court reopen the only avenue of escape, and grant him the ride he needs and deserves.

It goes on like that for five more glorious pages (PDF).

I don't know whether Buddy Trahan is legally entitled to a ride on the Streetcar Named Remand. The only substantive citation (unless you count Bob Dylan) is to an order by the court noting that it doesn't have federal-question jurisdiction, and Buddy Trahan then argues there is no diversity jurisdiction, either. The motion was reportedly denied. But it does at least have literary merit, certainly enough to get it added to the Pleadings Archive here. Quality work by Lance Lubel of Lubel Voyles LLP in Houston.

It may or may not be a coincidence that February 21 was Mardi Gras.