Liability, awards and settlements

22.8, Exxon Valdez , request for review of Supreme Court ruling

US: Exxon Mobil Corporation asked the US Supreme Court to review a federal court’s ruling that the company owes $2.5bn in punitive damages for the 1989 tanker Exxon Valdez spill. This is generally seen as Exxon’s final attempt to overturn the judgment, which Exxon has been battling for more than a decade. In May, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco denied Exxon’s request for another hearing in the long-running civil case. The company has been appealing since 1994, when an Anchorage jury awarded $5.0bn in punitive damages to the class-action plaintiffs, that claim economic harm from the spill of nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil in Prince William Sound. Lawyers for the plaintiffs have said that roughly 20% 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. The 9th Circuit Court slashed the original $5.0bn in punitive damages by half because, in part, the company did try to clean up the spill and didn’t spill oil from Exxon Valdez deliberately. In its petition to the Supreme Court, Exxon raised several criticisms of the 9th Circuit’s ruling. Exxon’s lawyers questioned, for example, whether it is legal for the 9th Circuit to impose punitive damages under maritime law against Exxon for the behaviour of one of its captains if Exxon didn’t have a direct role in the captain’s behaviour, and if the captain’s behaviour was contrary to company policy. Also, they argue, the 9th Circuit’s ruling ignored legal precedent on awarding punitive damages. Plaintiffs said the issues raised by Exxon have already been argued at length in court. Four of the nine Supreme Court justices must vote in favour of granting Exxon’s petition for the case to proceed any further.