Big fat fuckers
Friday, December 6, 2002 x 2 - 22:30

Yeah, this is two entries in like 15 minutes, but I just saw this article and had to post some of it. Fuck Exxon. And all oil companies, I guess, but fuck Exxon especially. And ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theater doesn't even begin to make up for their oil spill.

Dear Exxon, when you fuck up, you have to pay for it.

Judge reduces ExxonMobil Valdez damage award

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (CNN) -- ExxonMobil Corp. was ordered Friday to pay $4 billion in punitive damages for a 1989 oil spill in Prince William Sound, caused when the tanker Exxon Valdez ran around [sic. ha ha! the Exxon Valdez ran around] and dumped 11 million gallons of oil into pristine Alaskan waters.

In 1994, an Alaska jury awarded $5 billion in punitive damages to some 32,000 plaintiffs who sued over what's considered to be the nation's worst oil spill. But last year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the damage award as excessive and ordered U.S. District Court Judge Russel Holland to reconsider it.

Holland decided Friday to reduce the punitive damage award from $5 billion to $4 billion. However, a spokesman for ExxonMobil said the award was still excessive and the company would again ask the federal appeals panel to throw it out.

"This ruling flies in the face of the guidelines set by the appeals court," said spokesman Tom Cirigliano. "It is entirely inconsistent with the law set down by the 9th Circuit and the Supreme Court."

...

ExxonMobil has already paid some $3.4 billion to federal and state agencies, as some private interests, because of the spill, which covered 1,500 miles of of coastline with black sludge, damaged the area's fishing industry and killed thousands of birds and marine mammals.

The company maintained that no further punitive damages were warranted -- and that if any were imposed, they should be no higher than $40 million under the guidelines set out by the appeals court.

However, attorneys for the plaintiffs -- which including commercial fishermen, native Alaskans and coastal property owners -- argued that the 4-to-1 ratio suggested by the court was "arbitrary."