At the packed opening hearing of the massive litigation over the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier scheduled a key proceeding in the litigation — a trial to determine the proportion of fault among the corporate defendants — more than a year from now, in October 2011.

The initial gathering of hundreds of attorneys from across the country filled the largest room at federal court in New Orleans, plus two overflow courtrooms. It was supposed to be largely administrative, but in debating how to manage the hundreds of cases pegged to the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and subsequent oil leak, disputes were already taking shape over the interaction of maritime law with the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, the preservation of evidence with the blowout preventer, and how quickly other evidence can be gathered.

While Barbier put off questions of when test trials will occur on indirect economic damage, wrongful death, personal injury and psychological injury cases, he scheduled an all-important maritime proceeding known as a limitation of liability trial.

‘The good thing about setting the limitation of liability for trial is that it will be our goal for concluding discovery on […]