SCOTUS slashes Exxon damages for Valdez spill by $2 billion.
By on Jun 25th, 2008 at 11:45 am
SCOTUS slashes Exxon damages for Valdez spill by $2 billion.
This morning, the Supreme Court issued a 5-3 decision (Justice Samuel Alito did not participate) slashing punitive damages Exxon Mobil must pay for the 1989 Valdez spill disaster from $2.5 billion to $500 million. “Nearly 33,000 Alaskans are in line to share in the award,” AP reports, which have been cut now from $75,000 each to about $15,000.
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More rewards for incompetence.
No wonder the retarded trolls salute the Dumbya.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:46 amWell of course they had to cut the damage payment, what with the current price of oil and all.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:47 amI’m surprised Assholito recused himself because he owns stock in Exxon ; guess his friends on the court didn’t want his stock prices to drop…………
June 25th, 2008 at 11:50 amActivist Judges appointed by retarded Presidents and castrated Politicians.
‘F’ You, Alaska, wildlife, coastal birds, pristine wilderness and rational citizens everywhere.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:51 amGreat sarcasm, shoeless…
1989?
June 25th, 2008 at 11:52 amDid someone say “activist judges”?
June 25th, 2008 at 11:52 amI’m sure Senator Ted Stevens is outraged and will get to the bottom of this!
/snarc
June 25th, 2008 at 11:54 amnearly 20 years for 15,000 in damages?
June 25th, 2008 at 11:55 amLet’s see, gas in 1989 cost about $1 a gallon and is hovering around $4 a gallon now, a four-times increase. So, let’s take the $500M and multiple it by 4 to make the damages $2B in today’s dollars.
June 25th, 2008 at 11:59 amMove along folk’s, nothing to see here except all the black tar goo Exxon left on the beach and the billion’s of dollar’s of profit they kept for the people who didn’t need it…The moto should read.”If you stall long enough everyone will die off before you have to pay” or ” It’s better to spend million’s on judge’s and attorney’s than pay the fine”……Blessings
June 25th, 2008 at 12:00 pmWhat a surprise: the ruling class helping the ruling class…
June 25th, 2008 at 12:02 pmAfter giving us eight years of treason by Bush Incorporated, the moron Supremes just want to keep on giving…
“Nearly 33,000 Alaskans are in line to share in the award,” AP reports, which have been cut now from $75,000 each to about $15,000.</em>
Oil men spend more than that on tips at the Producer’s Club.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:04 pmOnce again, the best ‘judges’ money can buy.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:05 pm“punitive”, in my kooky activist mind, means “to punish”, thus i think it makes some sense that a punitive judgement should have some reasonable relationship to an entity’s net worth, not merely to whatever lowball number it can appraise its harm down to..
lets face it, this was about as effective to change exxons behaviour as a parking ticket is to change ours..
June 25th, 2008 at 12:05 pmWhat? Is ExxonMobil claiming to be a hardship case?
June 25th, 2008 at 12:05 pmTime flies when you’re appealing. Poor Exxon had to keep fighting all these years just because of one little accident.
Does the whole puny amount come close to CEO compensation?
June 25th, 2008 at 12:08 pmYou want to give these clumsies more places to explore and drill? It’ll take 20 years more to get ANWR all oil slicked?
As I said earlier, when you’re in a hole, quit DRILLING!
June 25th, 2008 at 12:11 pmEvery bit of the government has been corrupted by the Repukian Mafia.
By the people, for the people….not so much anymore.
Repukian moto: Corporations Rule!!!
June 25th, 2008 at 12:15 pmCorporate liability. or lack thereof, just got a big shot in the arm. From pharmaceutical companies to big oil, this federal triumpherate keeps giving out the lollipops. “Buyer beware” just got much worse.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:17 pmRule by and for corporations is one of the marks of a fascist government.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:21 pmBut of course, we can trust our corporations to do the right thing…for themselves.
*sigh*
Welcome to America, Inc. Please check your civil rights at the door.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:21 pmOh well, maybe the people in Alaska can make some money selling the oil they remove from the sea birds and otters.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:23 pmWith all the tax right offs Exxon got from “legal fees” resulting from this environmental catastrophy, they actually profitted off of this whole case. And what they wind up paying, after the nice SCOTUS discount? Also a tax write off. Should see records profits yet again this quarter!
And we thought justice was only for the rich…
PEACE
June 25th, 2008 at 12:25 pmImpeach the members of the court. They do not serve the people of this country any longer. 4 of them voted to shred the constitution recently.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:38 pmWhat country is this again? wrong answer
What does it tell you that Exxon’s stock price is unchanged on the news. This is chump change for them.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:39 pmDr.Hussein Matt
Outstanding imitation! It almost has me worried about you! :)
June 25th, 2008 at 12:46 pmThe nightmare for Exxon is finally over. Will we see Rex Tillerson and Boner crying in relief?
June 25th, 2008 at 12:46 pmPatrioticLiberalChristian Says:
——————————————————————————–
Dr.Hussein Matt
Outstanding imitation!
It certainly was a great imitation! Just about the only word spelled correctly was “oil”.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:52 pmHeck, at $500 million per spill, Exxon is going to start crashing tankers just for laughs.
Accountability is un-American these days.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:53 pmRogerse just made more sense. I’m emailing the doctoral committee to speed up their vote.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:55 pmI guess Texas’ Senior ‘Big Awl’ whores, Kay ‘Beetle’ Bailey-Hutchinson and Cornyn have earned their K Street salary on this one. She and Cornyn have been working the SCOTUS and everyone else on the Hill tirelessly on this for the past 3 years.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:56 pmThe original jury award, the voice of the people, was $5 billion. The federal judiciary reduced that to 10% of the original amount. Does that mean our federal government is 90% corporate and 10% people oriented?
Also, $500 million equates to 12 hours of sales and less than 5 days of profit. Not much of a punitive fine, is it?
http://peureport.blogspot.com/2008/06/exxon-gets-craps-for-valdez-oil-spill.html
June 25th, 2008 at 12:56 pmYep, corporate America is good for us….
do we really want to see more of this:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080625/ap_on_re_us/plant_shooting
honestly, it only happens in the US. It is a regular event here but you never hear of it from other civilized nations.
We are owned by the corporate war mongers. When will we learn.
June 25th, 2008 at 12:58 pmDr. Matt:
That was great! I was wildly scrolling up to find Roger2’s original post, as I completely accepted that he/she/it wrote it.
Kudos!
June 25th, 2008 at 12:59 pmDoes anyone know why this issue would be considered a Constitutional one? That, after all, is what the Supreme Court is supposed to be deciding.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:11 pmDo you think there’s any chance that Alaskans will figure out that their Republicans don’t give a damn about them?
June 25th, 2008 at 1:29 pmDear Chuck U. — Maybe the Alaskans will figure it out some day.
Once again justice delayed is justice denied. The Supreme Court had no business reducing the award. At this point the SCOTUS does more to promote lawlessness than Congress, and that’s saying a lot.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:38 pmMy current reading list is a book by John Grisham called “The Appeal” — a nice little rundown about corporate interests and a Supreme Court. Scary stuff.
June 25th, 2008 at 1:54 pmWhat a wimpy decision. Souter and the four who signed should be ashamed.
Either punitives are consisent with American law, or they are not. Although I personally don’t think punitives have a place in American tort law, it is almost worse to see this “yes they have a place, but only a minor place” ruling.
The Court should either have upheld the full award, or knocked it down to nothing.
June 25th, 2008 at 2:35 pmExxon blamed a rogue ship pilot for the accident, when they conducted the hiring and ongoing evaluation of his performance. Not mentioned in most news pieces is the broken underwater radar system that would have allowed the person at the controls to avoid the rocky outcropping. A jury heard the evidence and slammed the company with a $5 billion judgement. The federal judiciary came through with a $4.5 billion reduction.
This legal defense was employed by The Carlyle Group’s LifeCare Hospitals after Hurricane Katrina. The company was responsible for managing patient care in a disaster, but they blame rogue doctors and nurses, likely not even on LifeCare’s payroll. Who allowed non-LifeCare clinicians access to their patients? A grand jury heard the evidence and chose not to charge the rogue clinicians with any crime for their heroic, life saving efforts. Carlyle’s crack legal team now blames FEMA, claiming patients became “wards of the federal government” as soon as FEMA evacuation teams set up in New Orleans. How will the current federal government bail out Carlyle and LifeCare from their 24 potential wrongful death lawsuits? Stay tuned!
June 25th, 2008 at 2:36 pmSkeeter1 Says:
You’re right. The fact of knocking the award down to a spit-in-your-face joke shows the utter contempt of this SCOTUS for the interests of the American people. How long has it been since this government actually operated “Of, by and for”?
June 25th, 2008 at 2:54 pmIt looks like we the people need to tear down our current government and start over. The republican neonazis have just about destroied our country and part of the rest of the planet and will detroy everything unless we just kick the stupid a holes back to the corner to the irrelevent status they have proven they deserve!
June 25th, 2008 at 3:20 pmI think we can expect things like this as oil barons try to get as much as they can before the Dems take over in January.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:33 pmWhen Bush leaves and his legacy is nothing but sh!t, can we recall the appointments he made? Can we begin impeachment of the SCOTUS members – namely Scalia, who has joined in cases when he should have recused himself?
June 25th, 2008 at 3:35 pmSCOTUS = FASCIST CORPORATE SCUM!!
June 25th, 2008 at 4:39 pmFor 20 years before the spill I made $10,000 every year herring fishing.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:15 pmThe Captain Hazlewood a known relapsed alchoholic ,which was known to Exxon crashed that tanker on a reef less than 2 miles from the primary spawning ground of PWS Herring ,exactly when They were there to spawn ,since that time It has been proven the collapse of the Herring Stocks was a result of Hydrocarbon poisen We have not fished Herring for 20 years , Since that timeThe compensatory damages were for lost fishing in the year of the spill , for Me $10,000 now after 20 years of lost fishing The Supreme Court allows Me $8,000 total for My lost livlihood.Just goes to Show that this is a land where Justice is a game of whoever has the most money wins.
We never knew the extent of the long term Damages in 94 when That case was settled for Compensatory.
Now there is no real deterrent for corperate negligence ,which is exactly what putting a known drunk at the wheel of a supertanker is .