And so it goes on….Exxon is making a final appeal for a review of a court decision ordering it to pay $2.5 billion in punitive damages for the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989.

Exxon has been belligerently battling the judgement for over a decade. The company has managed to get the award cut in half from the original $5 billion awarded in 1994 by an Anchorage jury to the plaintiffs in the class-action suit stemming from the nearly 11 million-gallon crude oil spill in Prince William Sound.

It has now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the lower court’s ruling. Four of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices must vote in favor of granting Exxon’s petition for the case to proceed further.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs have said that roughly 20 percent of their clients have died during the lawsuit. The living plaintiffs include about 33,000 commercial fishermen, cannery workers, landowners, Natives, local governments and businesses.

Plaintiffs said the issuers raised by Exxon have already been argued to death in court.  “This case has no constitutional merit. It’s just about money and award levels that have been hashed and rehashed ad nauseam,” said Frank Mullen, a Homer salmon gillnetter and plaintiff in the case. “One way or another, this thing is going to be done in 2008,” Mullen said, noting that the Supreme Court has until the end of the year to respond to Exxon’s petition.

2 Comments

  • Well, having saved the original National Geographic magazine with the pictures from this tragedy, and realizing how long ago it was, it is astonishing that Exxon fights paying what it started…and very sad. They made HOW MUCH in corporate profits in the past few years, and are acting as if they shouldn’t have to pay for their damages? Your duty as a citizen, youngsters, is to see to it that corporations are accountable, as there are fewer and fewer people willing to take the time it takes…it should be as natural as brushing your teeth…a day to day job…to be a citizen..and good people everywhere need to make Exxon pay for this horror…well, don’t know what else to say.

  • Exxon is the bigest liar in the world, They did not really try to clean up the oil spill. They just put on a big show. They would only give a limited number of plastic waste bags to beach cleaners. Beach cleaners would fill the bags with oil waste earley in the morning and sit all day without waste bags. Exxon had barges with containers full of bags anchored near by, but controled the costs of clean up knowing that the more bags dispursed to beach cleaners the more it would cost to remove the waste and have it shiped to incenerators. This is well known in Seldovia where we worked hard to save our wildlife and beaches. Three weeks after oil spill an Exxon came to our village and stated that the oil was gone and dispursed and it was safe to go fishing. I took my boat out to go sablefishing and my engine sucked oil into the heat exchanger ruining the engine as I tried to keep the boat from blowing on the rocks. The boat ended up on the beach and the hull was damaged so bad I had to destroy the vessel later. I was paid $8,500. by Exxon, The current vessel survey showed the vessel was worth $100,000.

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