I&rsquo;ve covered courts intermittently throughout my career in journalism, and despite the general notion that individual cases only impact the specific plaintiffs and defendants involved, what&rsquo;s become clear is that much of what happens in the courts ripples across industries and through generations.

As the litigation surrounding the Deepwater Horizon explosion &mdash; the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history &mdash; floods federal courts along the Gulf Coast, I think we&rsquo;ll see that surface.

A story I worked on this week attempted to layout the status of much of the litigation...&lt;div class=&quot;feedflare&quot;&gt;
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