The San Joaquin Valley has had many gushers, starting with the Shamrock gusher in 1896 and continuing with the spectacular Midway gusher in 1909. But none of these wells came close to rivaling the Lakeview No. 1 which flowed, uncapped and untamed, at 18,000 barrels a day for 18 months in 1910 and 1911.

Julius Fried, a grocer by trade, picked the site for the Lakeview well because he thought a clump of red grass indicated good oil land. When Fried and his partners naively…

Prior to the summer of 2009, the courts did not allow injured seamen to recover punitive damage awards in cases where a vessel owner refused to provide an injured seaman with maintenance and cure benefits. As such, in cases where there may have been issues relating to the veracity of the seaman’s complaint, there was no real penalty for the vessel owner denying such benefits. Although there were several strategic reasons for paying, or not paying, these benefits, punitive damages were not…