Animals Aiding Justice: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Ensuing Neurobehavioral Impacts as a Case Study for Using Animal Models in Toxic Tort Litigation

Following environmental disasters, like the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, many affected individuals are left with litigation as their only route for monetary recovery. When the damages include illness or injury from exposure to toxic substances, demonstrating causation is challenging. This obstacle is exacerbated by courts’ frequent unjustified exclusion of animal model studies. This dissertation uses the Deepwater Horizon oil spill as a case study to illustrate how and why we should expand the use of animal model studies as evidence of causation in toxic tort litigation to further the goal of justice.

This dissertation describes the rules of scientific evidence admissibility, how animal model studies are viewed by practitioners in the field, and explains that animal studies are often unjustifiably deemed inadmissible. It continues to then articulate the many form and function similarities in the exposure system (respiratory system) and an oil-impacted system (nervous system) between humans and a model animal, Zebrafish (Danio rerio) in support of animal models aiding justice in toxic tort litigation. Further, this dissertation explains the behavioral assays that are employed in the experiments reported and how the combination of oil exposure and these assays are effective at targeting nervous system endpoints following crude oil exposure. One set of experiments reported employs startle response and habituation behavioral assays as well as neuromast staining and imaging demonstrating oil-induced impacts to the nervous system. The startle response was found to exhibit a clear dose/concentration response and to be among the most sensitive endpoints measured in fish following oil exposure. In a second set of experiments, I then show neurobehavioral impacts in larval zebrafish following parental oil exposure, like those reported in humans following exposure to oil and harmful components in oil, chiefly, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Finally, I propose what I believe to be an effective path forward to further tort law’s aim for justice.