Litigation Support

Litigation Support

Becht has over 1,000 personnel with extensive experience in the refining, petrochemical, and specialty chemical areas.  We support most types of litigation cases including accident and forensic investigation, technology valuation, insurance claims, products liability and intellectual property among others.

Most of our experts have over 30 years of experience in their respective fields; fixed equipment, process safety management, project management, mechanical integrity, corrosion, materials, coatings, refractory, process technology, rotating equipment, tankage, flare systems, instrumentation, electrical, control systems, operations, environmental, turnaround support and heavy lift.  Our expertise provides counsel with the technical know-how needed to litigate or mediate a dispute.

 

Selected Becht Litigation Support efforts are noted below:

  1. Mechanical consultation to support litigation involving a pipe elbow rupture resulting in significant damage to refinery. Provided expert opinions on inspection findings and fitness for service.
  2. Rotating Equipment consultation to support litigation involving major Olefin’s centrifugal compressor mechanical seal failure resulting in unplanned downtime.
  3. Project Consulting expert opinion, deposition, and testifying supporting for a major plant retrofit project. The retrofit project was a cost-reimbursable contracting strategy.
  4. Heavy Lift consultation for major crane overhaul incident resulting in loss of life at a Refinery.
  5. Process Technical and Maintenance Turnaround expert reports to support causal analysis for Refinery loss of containment due to contaminant intrusion into piping network.
  6. Mechanical expert opinions and testimony on failures of buried double containment piping system (court, arbitration and mediation).
  7. Heavy lift expert report and testimony for a crane collapse in a major metropolitan city
  8. Materials causal analysis and expert opinion as part of litigation on refinery heat exchanger loss of containment resulting in loss of life.
  9. Expert report and testimony in Federal Court with respect to infringement of a double containment piping system patent
  10. Mechanical expert opinion as part of arbitration on damages from a vessel explosion. Findings involved feasibility of repair of equipment damaged by pieces ejected versus wholesale replacement.
  11. Process Safety Management guidance on Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) case for Petrochemical facility.
  12. Expert Report – When an EPC contractor was fired from an ore tailings project and sued for past due invoices, they were countersued for alleged damages. Expert report showing alleged damages were due to owner actions, the actions of the subsequent EPC contractor, or were otherwise baseless led to quick settlement.
  13. Investigation and expert report showed that expert reports by others for subrogation purposes alleging that a refinery fire and explosion was caused by a pump were factually wrong.
  14. Expert report and testimony on buried propane storage tank vehicular damage and consequential fatality.
  15. Expert report and testimony on personal injury lawsuit related to a reactor that had a release due to a decomposition reaction.


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