Poor Exxon...Valdez damage awards "too high"; Rotten Supreme Court ready to agree

[marmar]

from AP, via CNN:



High Court may lower Exxon Valdez damages
Several justices indicate the $2.5B punitive damages award to victims of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster is too high.


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed inclined to reduce the $2.5 billion award of punitive damages to victims of the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Several justices indicated they think the amount approved by a federal appeals court is too high, although there was no apparent consensus about how much Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM, Fortune 500) should have to pay for the 1989 accident in which its 987-foot tanker ran aground on a reef and dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska waters.

Justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter suggested that perhaps a reasonable number would be twice the amount of money the company has paid to compensate victims for economic losses. Walter Dellinger, representing Exxon, said the company has paid about $500 million in such costs.

Overall, Exxon has paid $3.4 billion in fines, penalties, cleanup costs, claims and other expenses resulting from the worst oil spill in U.S. history.

"Exxon gained nothing by what went wrong in this case and paid dearly for it," Dellinger said, in urging the court to erase the punitive damages judgment that has been upheld by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Stanford University law professor Jeffrey Fisher said the nearly 33,000 commercial fishermen, Native Alaskans, landowners, businesses and local governments he represents have each received about $15,000 so far "for having their lives destroyed."

Fisher said nothing in prior Supreme Court decisions should cause the justices to overturn the $2.5 billion award, about $75,000 for each plaintiff. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/27/news/companies/exxon_valdez.ap/index.htm?section=money_latest

[BridgeTheGap]

1. Aren't their profits too high? Bastards! n.t

[LSparkle]

2. Per Greg Palast, they're just trying to run out the clock

Wait until all the plaintiffs have passed away, so they can avoid paying even the reduced damages award.

Exxon Mobil is a company of vultures. I haven't bought their gas in the past 5 years or so, nor will I ever again.

[napi21]

3. Did you hear Gregg o the radio yesterday talking about all the

safety features Exxon ignored, thus LETTING that accident happen? I had never heard about those before and I'm appaled that they've gotten away with postponement THIS LONG!

[LSparkle]

10. Not having the "relief vessel" or whatever it's called available was a sin

Like they could NEVER have anticipated a problem, NEVER thought they could be imperfect ...
Their greedy cost-cutting cost the environment and people dearly.

[TahitiNut]

5. I haven't spent a single penny with them since 1989 .. and never will.

With the very first news of the spill, I stopped any and all Exxon purchases and, when the Exxon-Mobil merger was foreseen, stopped any purchases at Mobil as well. They're dead to me and will NEVER get a single penny from me.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. One can only hope that somehow Congress manages to get rid of the tax breaks

that these "poor" oil companies are enjoying.
I think that all citizens should get an amnesty from taxes on oil and gasoline, and the oil companies should be forced to make up the difference from their windfall profits.

[jtrockville]

6. I haven't bought Exxon fuel since it happened.

I know I don't make even a teeny-tiny dent in their astronomical profits, but I just can't bring myself to feed this fiend.

[Uncle Joe]

7. And to think that was almost twenty years ago!

I wonder how many of those victims have died since then?

[Preston120]

8. Now you Know.

Now we know why "Big Business" supports republicans!

[PA Democrat]

9. This is REALLY what the battle for the Supreme Court is all about.

It's sad that so many stupid sheeple want conservative judges because of abortion, when in reality, the people in power want conservative judges to protect corporate interests.

[gratuitous]

11. Predicting a Supreme Court decision is a dicey business

And in the last 15 years or so, the question of punitive damages awards has come up fairly frequently. One of the reasons it keeps coming back to the Court is that its decisions never seem to reach any bedrock legal principles. Should punitive damages be confined to a multiplier of the economic damages or not? Is there one hard and fast standard that should guide a jury when awarding punitive damages, or are there several criteria a jury should consider? Should a defendant's nationwide conduct be considered, or should a jury consider the defendant's conduct in the state where the case is tried? Should defendants be allowed to argue one side of a question at trial, and then the other side of the question on appeal when the trial court accepts their original argument?

Defendants who are ordered to pay punitive damages would really like to see punitives confined to a single-digit multiplier. And depending on the case, they would like to see juries consider only one factor when awarding punitive damages, and that is usually a factor that doesn't apply or applies only minimally to the case at hand.