Exxon Mobil Seeks Final Appeal of Valdez Ruling
Date: 23-Aug-07
Country: US
Author: Yereth Rosen
Exxon, in a petition filed Monday, argued the high court should overturn the punitive-damages verdict that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said must be paid for the 11 million-gallon disaster.
That total is half the amount ordered by a federal court jury in Anchorage in 1994. The 9th Circuit Court reduced it to comply with what it concluded were constitutional limits.
Exxon Mobil, the successor company to Exxon Corp, argued in its Supreme Court petition that maritime law does not allow imposition of such a large punitive award.
"The Ninth Circuit's inability to discern or even acknowledge any substantive maritime-law principles limiting the size of this extraordinary punitive award demonstrates the urgency of the need for this Court to articulate such limits," Exxon argued in its petition.
The company also repeated its earlier argument that the punitive award was improperly calculated and an unacceptably high multiple of actual compensatory damages. The company has argued punitive damages should be no more than $25 million, based on actual compensation given to commercial fishermen for the loss of their harvests.
The Supreme Court has the right to hear Exxon's appeal or reject it.
Plaintiffs include more than 30,000 fishermen, Alaska natives, property owners and others who filed individual claims against Exxon that were consolidated into a class-action case.
The Valdez spill remains a bitter memory in Cordova, a fishing-dependent Prince William Sound town of 2,200.
Jerry McCune, president of Cordova District Fishermen United, said he is not surprised Exxon appealed even after having the punitive award reduced.
"They just don't believe that they owe anything, and they're arrogant," McCune said. "Most people (in Cordova) don't forget about it that went through the thing."
The spill spread oil to more than 1,200 miles (1,900 km) of coastline, closed fisheries and killed thousands of marine mammals and hundreds of thousands of sea birds.
"As we have said many times, the Valdez oil spill was a tragic accident, one which the corporation deeply regrets, and one for which the corporation has paid significantly," Exxon Mobil spokesman Tony Cudmore said.
He said Exxon Mobil has spent more than $3.5 billion on the clean-up, compensation and settlements.
Small pockets of Valdez oil remain on shorelines in Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska, according to federal studies. A recent study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that remnant oil is disappearing very slowly, at a rate of only 1 percent to 4 percent a year.
