High Court slashes Exxon Valdez fine
WW commentary
By
Kathy Durkin
Published Jul 2, 2008 10:03 PM
Exxon Mobil has good friends on the U.S. Supreme Court. This was evident on
June 25. That’s when the high court justices handed the oil giant a big
victory as they voted 5-3 to reduce the punitive damages’ award it had to
pay in the Exxon Valdez lawsuit.
Five justices cut the oil giant’s punitive damages to $507 million from a
lower court’s award of $2.5 billion. The lower amount is a drop in the
bucket for Exxon Mobil Corporation, the world’s most profitable
corporation, which made a record-breaking $40 billion in profits in 2007. These
profits were garnered by charging the highest price on record for barrels of
oil and by gouging consumers worldwide with exorbitant fuel prices.
The oil conglomerate could easily cover the high court’s damage award
with four-and-one-half days of earnings from profits. (That’s only $107
million more than former Exxon Mobil Chairman Lee Raymond’s retirement
package in 2006!)
For nearly 20 years, 32,677 plaintiffs—fishers and Indigenous community
members, among others—were joined together in a class-action lawsuit to
gain justice for the economic injuries they suffered in the worst oil spill in
U.S. history and to hold the oil corporation accountable. They were outraged
and devastated by the court’s ruling, which will give them each on
average $15,000—much lower than the losses many suffered and one-fifth of
what they would have received under the $2.5 billion award. Six thousand
plaintiffs died waiting for the settlement.
The history of this case is rife with capitalist greed, corporate wrongdoing
and refusal to take responsibility, and complicity by the courts.
The notorious disaster occurred on March 24, 1989, when the oil tanker Exxon
Valdez hit Bligh Reef, off the Alaskan coastline, spilling 11 million gallons
of crude oil into the waters of Prince William Sound and polluting 1,200 miles
of Alaska’s seacoast. Within five months, the oil had spread, covering
10,000 square miles of water; it is still all over the beaches.
This environmental disaster impacted thousands of people who earn their living
from the sea; many people lost everything they had. Coastal Indigenous
subsistence communities were harmed; many couldn’t hunt and gather on
beaches for years afterwards. Monumental and lasting damage was done to the
ecosystem. Untold numbers of fish and other animals, including 500,000 birds
and 4,500 sea otters, were killed.
Plaintiffs were awarded $287 million in compensatory or actual damages and $5
billion in punitive damages by an Alaska jury in 1994. Exxon Mobil appealed. A
higher court cut the damages to $4 billion. The oil titans refused that
settlement and appealed again. In 2006, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court cut punitive
damages to $2.5 billion.
Driven by insatiable greed and with callous disregard for those affected by the
disaster, Exxon Mobil appealed again, this time to their allies on the U.S.
Supreme Court, seeking to eradicate all punitive damages. They were royally
rewarded when the high court rolled back the damages award.
Showing unbridled greed, the oil giant even maneuvered to get 11 percent of the
$507 million award given to them! (Anchorage Daily News, June 26)
Big business applauded the Supreme Court’s ruling. It set a legal
precedent which can have far-reaching ramifications: The majority invented a
rule that limits punitive damages against corporations in maritime cases to
equal compensatory damages—$507 million in this case.
Dissenting Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul
Stevens said the court should not legislate rules limiting punitive damages to
those of compensatory damages. (Justice Samuel Alito did not vote because he
owns Exxon stock.)
Environmental and other progressive activists and attorneys fear this judgment
will be used as precedent—to stop or limit lawsuits seeking to penalize
and prevent any corporate wrongdoing and to give the go-ahead to corporate
plunder of the earth with impunity.
The decision also strikes a blow against jury-awarded settlements. At every
level, the courts sided with Exxon Mobil. That shows U.S. courts are not
neutral arbitrators of class and political conflict, but a part of the state
apparatus which intervenes solidly on the side of the capitalist class to
protect private property.
The courts cannot be relied on to provide justice on issues like environmental
destruction—nor on any issue. Only militant mass movements and
people’s struggles will push them to make decent decisions and help
restrain the corporations.
The capitalist class has no regard for protecting the environment or anything
on the planet, including all life that inhabits it. Ravaging the earth is
endemic within their system. Everything is about the insatiable drive for
expansion and ever-greater profits. Nothing is sacrosanct except the almighty
dollar—or billions of dollars.
Yet there is a system that makes respect for the planet and its residents the
top priority; that is socialism.
Sources for this article include The Anchorage Daily News and
ExxposeExxon.com.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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