A flurry of legal claims were filed on the one-year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion Wednesday, as people harmed by the oil spill rushed to put their names in for a trial scheduled for next February, companies involved in the disaster filed suit against each other, and the state of Louisiana expanded its claim as legal deadlines loomed. About 70,000 people filed claims in an obscure maritime law proceeding brought by rig owner Transocean Ltd. by the end of the day Wednesday using a form that also signed them up for the broader litigation against BP, the leaseholder on the well, and other companies that were involved. That number is expected to increase as claims that have been mailed or hand-delivered to the federal courthouse at 500 Poydras Street are entered into the system, but some claims could also get knocked out if they are found to have been improperly filed. Scores of lawsuits representing multiple parties were also filed on top of the 350 suits that were in place at the time of a litigation status conference in late March. Wednesday's deadline was something of a moment of truth between the dueling litigation and mediator Kenneth Feinberg's Gulf Coast ...
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