Thousands Are Opting Out Of The BP Spill Settlement

The people putting together the proposed class-action settlement of claims from the April 2010 oil spill and explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, believe their efforts will not be derailed by the thousands of people and business owners who are saying they are opting out of the deal.

Today is the final day for petitioners to send in their paperwork that would allow them to opt out of the multibillion dollar alliance between BP and a team of plaintiffs' attorneys.

Patrick Juneau, who administers the court-supervised claims process, says nearly twenty-three hundred people have already decided that they are opting out. The final figures on how many people or businesses who have opted out will not be known until next week.

Steve Herman, a plaintiffs' attorney in the litigation, has written he believes that there is "very little chance" that the deal will fall apart.