BP CEO Tony Hayward is adding galling insult to devastating injury. Rightly facing billions of dollars in costs to clean up BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill and to compensate Americans for huge business losses to come, Hayward has pre-emptively attacked future American oil spill damage lawsuits by branding them “illegitimate.”

“This is America — come on,” the well-tailored head of London-based BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, told the Times of London. “We’re going to have lots of illegitimate claims. We all know that.”

Actually, here’s what we do know: BP is in no position to pre-judge injured Americans’ legal actions in terms of their legitimacy. BP’s own cost-cutting, negligence and corporate greed have brought a whole new meaning to the term illegitimacy, in fact.

Already, evidence is mounting that BP’s safety negligence contributed to the deaths of 11 oil platform workers in the Gulf of Mexico explosion and fire last month. Survivors have told ABC News that alarms to warn them of an imminent blast never sounded, while oil industry experts cite failure of devices which might have prevented the blast.

Yet Americans’ future claims for damages from catastrophic economic impacts caused by BP’s failures are being pre-judged by its CEO for their legitimacy. With such haughty British dismissals, you’d  think America was still a colony ripe for high taxes on tea.

Besides, April’s explosion and volcanic spewing of oil into Gulf waters are hardly BP’s only tragic transgressions. In fact, BP’s failures have led to more oil refinery deaths in the U.S. in the past decade than those by any other oil company.

These deaths include 15 contract workers who perished in a March 2005 BP oil refinery explosion in Texas City, TX. They include a worker killed at a BP refinery in Seattle. And they include many others dying in scattered BP accidents in recent years — not to mention the 11 who died on the Deepwater Horizon.

BP deaths even have occurred at its Texas City refinery after the red flag of its 2005 disaster, which also injured more than 170 workers. In 2008, after BP was found negligent in heeding or implementing proper safety measures in the 2005 blast, a BP employee of 30 years died in another accident at BP’s Texas City refinery. And the list goes on.

Yet BP’s CEO now criticizes Americans for their lack of legitimacy?

Americans have a message for him: Legitimate lawsuits are coming. Legitimate claims for the enormous damages caused by BP’s negligence are inevitable. And regardless of your belittling — before the fact — of such lawsuits’ legitimacy, these oil spill damage lawsuits will hold BP accountable for the  shaky self-regulation, horrendous safety record and foolish cost-cutting in vital areas which caused havoc in the past and likely led to last month’s historic tragedy.

Historic? Yes. BP’s Gulf explosion is now being widely called the worst oil rig disaster in U.S. history.

Grieving families of the 11 men killed have a legitimate right to demand compensation from BP. Gulf Coast fishermen, restaurants and others dependent on harvests of oysters, shrimp and other seafood have a legitimate right to claim financial help from BP. And the $100 billion Gulf Coast tourism industry has its own legitimate right to insist that BP pay for its mistakes.

BP’s immediate response was arrogance. While offering fishermen in Louisiana, Alabama, Texas and elsewhere $5,000 for their services in the oil spill cleanup, it included a waiver which specified they’d never sue.

Stinging from criticism, BP withdrew that strategy, which even Hayward admits was a “misstep.” (Was the horrific explosion also a “misstep”?) Yet now he brands Americans’ future lawsuits “illegitimate” because, after all, “this is America — come on.”

“Come on” is correct, Mr. Hayward. Come to American courts. That is where Americans with legitimate claims against you will set the record straight, and hold you accountable for your own illegitimate actions.

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