“We believe Halliburton is among those parties that should accept responsibility for this accident and the harm it has caused our Company and others throughout the Gulf Coast region,” said St. Joe’s President and CEO Britt Greene in a statement. “The lawsuit represents an important first step in our effort to achieve a full and complete recovery for the damages suffered by St. Joe. At the same time we aggressively pursue these remedies, we remain focused on our strategic plan – and delivering long-term value to our shareholders.”

During the second quarter, St. Joe suffered a net loss of $8.6 million, or nine cents per share, including a pre-tax restructuring charge of $1.2 million or $0.01 per share after tax. This compares to a net loss in the second quarter of 2009 of $44.8 million, or 49 cents per share, which included pre-tax non-cash charges of $64.7 million or $0.43 per share after tax.

"Prior to the oil spill, we had seen momentum building in our operations; however, the oil spill has adversely impacted our markets and has created uncertainty about the future of the Gulf Coast region," Greene said.

The lawsuit, filed in Superior Court for the state of Delaware, New Castle County, charges Halliburton with having been grossly negligent in the performance of its duties. “Halliburton is as liable as BP as it relates to the oil spill and the damage to St. Joe,” Brewer contends, adding that St. Joe has not filed suit with BP. “We started with Halliburton because we wanted to pursue state law remedies.”

Brewer says Halliburton was “grossly negligent” and that the company’s “participation in the cementing process – and the company’s willful disregard of important safety measures – make it liable for the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and the catastrophic damages that it caused.”

According to the lawsuit, Halliburton was a key participant in a number of systemic failures that contributed to the incident. The lawsuit alleges the company was grossly negligent in its management of the well cementing process – a fundamental part of deepwater drilling that is critical to preventing oil and gas from escaping from the well.

“Halliburton failed at every stage to cement the well in accordance with applicable regulations, industry standards, and its own best practices,” the lawsuit states. “As a result, the cementing failed, allowing oil and gas to escape the well which caused the catastrophic blowout.”

Halliburton is the largest company in the global cementing business. The lawsuit claims that the company failed to use an appropriate number of centralizers (attachments that go around the casing as it is being lowered into the well to keep the casing in the center of the borehole), committed numerous errors throughout the Deepwater Horizon cementing process and intentionally opted for a faster, cheaper and inferior process of completing the final stages of the cement process.

The lawsuit claims that the result of these choices was fewer barriers to prevent the escape of oil and gas flow. With respect to the use of only six centralizers, the complaint says, “…Halliburton, despite having already determined that such a procedure would produce a ‘failure of the cement job,’ again sacrificed principles and moved forward with the final sealing of the well in an unsafe and grossly negligent manner, rather than insisting on using the necessary number of centralizers, creating an imminent safety hazard.”

Brewer says his firm contacted Halliburton on St. Joe’s behalf to resolve the situation prior to filing suit, but didn’t see “the prospect of any negotiated resolution” in the near future. “This catastrophe has implications for all of us,” he contends. “It’s chilling what Halliburton did and didn't do… the number of decisions that they made that were far below the standard of care, any one of which, if they had made the decision correctly, and with any measure of prudence… if they had performed adequately on any tasks, this explosion would not have occurred.”

Brewer says Halliburton has 30 days to respond to the lawsuit, at which point the parties will move into the discovery phase. “We hope to get the case to trial as soon as possible,” he notes, adding that he expects the suit to get to a jury within 12 to 18 months.

The ideal outcome of the suit would result in St. Joe “gaining full recovery for restitution of damages within a short period of time,” Brewer says.

Halliburton did not respond to a request for comment by deadline. GlobeSt will continue to follow this story.