Breaking: Supreme Court cuts Exxon oil spill punitive damages

[RB TexLa]

Link to decision


CNNMoney.com
Supreme Court reduces Exxon oil spill damages
Wednesday June 25, 10:20 am ET

The Supreme Court has reduced a $2.5 billion punitive damages award against energy giant Exxon for its role in an infamous 1989 maritime oil spill.

The high court concluded, 8-0, that punitive damages should roughly match actual damages from the environmental disaster, which were roughly $507 million.


http://biz.yahoo.com/cnnm/080625/062508_scotus_exxon.html?.v=1

The U.S. Supreme Court just overturned a $2.5 billion award in the Exxon Valdez case. Bloomberg News reports that the court cut the punitive damages to $507.5 million.

The high court case involved commercial losses of a class of 32,677 commercial fishermen, business operators and landowners, Native Alaskans and municipalities.


http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/06/supreme-court-c.html?csp=34

[hatrack]

1. Shocked, shocked, I tell you!

:puke:

[SammyWinstonJack]

29. Yea, so am I.

:evilgrin:

[BlueJazz]

2. Why don't we just give them 2 or 3 billion for creating Jobs? ...after all...

...it took a lot of people to clean up that mess.

[roguevalley]

28. there are people who died waiting for this. The spill is still there.

Just flip over rocks. I bet you can find a few supreme court justices under some of them too. this is the biggest travesty of justice in history in my opinion. they didn't clean this shit up, they outwaited everyone until the court was stacked and they screwed us all. FUCK EXXON AND THE FUCKING SUPREME COURT!

[zanne]

3. 8-0? nt

[Winterblues]

9. Exactly..I thought there were nine justices..

:shrug:

[davepc]

10. Alito didn't participate

[robinlynne]

17. too much stock in exxon?

[Freddie Stubbs]

22. Correct:

Justice Samuel Alito didn't take part in the court's decision to take up the case. Alito owned at least $100,001 in Exxon stock as of Dec. 31, according to his latest financial disclosure report.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=atcMF0N8XvPI&refer=home

[lpbk2713]

4. Headline should read ....

BUSHCO Supreme Court reduces Exxon oil spill damages

[marmar]

5. NCLB - No Corporation Left Behind

Mon dieu!

[iamthebandfanman]

6. god i hate conservative thinking.

welfare for the corporations..
but none for the starving working man.

[spanone]

7. there's nothing supreme about the bu$h* court

[EV_Ares]

8. Why are we all not surprised. I think this would be a good time for all of the dem

leaders to be out there in front of a mike why we do not want to take a chance on someone like McSame putting more of these people on the court. With the publics attitude about the oil companies anyway right now, seems like it would be a good time to get that point across.

However, it was an 8 - 0 vote so, was not just Scalia and his group.

[nancyr]

11. We have to take care of the struggling oil companies.

[Froward69]

12. fucking cock sucking son of a bitches!!!

[Triana]

13. Yet another GREAT reason to vote for Obama. He'll likely be able to appoint TWO

SC justices during his term.

That would change the balance of this Repig / big business butt-licking crap court - and like anything that STINKS - it needs to be changed.

McSame, on the other hand, will just tip it further towards the Repig / corprat-friendly kangeroo court that it now resembles.

[Thothmes]

15. All he will be able to do is replace the

two most liberal judges on the court. Ginsburg and Stevens voted with the majority in this case.

[Triana]

24. Better they're replaced with two other liberals than two neo-con/corporatists. n/t

[tavalon]

37. So, say you, but I figure if Jerry Falwell could pray for the death of gays,

God won't mind if I pray for terminal illness for some of our other members of the Court, right?

[Freddie Stubbs]

23. Even the liberal Justices supported this

The Court is supposed to interpret the law as written, not as Congress SHOULD have written it.

[cascadiance]

14. Interest ALONE on those "damages" should be over $1 billion now!

Especially if we charge them the rates that loan shark credit card companies have for all of those that have had to get by on credit card debt over the years to make do while Exxon has been bailed out year after year by a corporatist serving government! Late fees would also double that again! How much would you have in late fees on a credit card bill if you waited over 20 YEARS to pay them back?!

[Wizard777]

16. So SCOTUS is going to allow Exxon to figure in ecological disaster as a cost of doing business.

So much for the concept of punitive damages. I'll bet Exxon is STILL saying it's too much and we won't pay it.

[tabasco]

25. Exactly. Punitive damages are supposed to be PUNISHMENT

to help prevent it from happening again.

I have never heard that punitive damages should approximate actual damages.

Now, it's like you say, just a cost of doing business.

[spanone]

18. another bu$h*/cheney mission accomplished

[CrispyQ]

19. Shameful, absolutely shameful.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/01/news/companies/exxon_earnings/

Exxon shatters profit records
Oil giant makes corporate history by booking $11.7 billion in quarterly profit; earns $1,300 a second in 2007.

By David Ellis, CNNMoney.com staff writer
February 1 2008: 2:26 PM EST

snip...

Exxon Mobil made history on Friday by reporting the highest quarterly and annual profits ever for a U.S. company, boosted in large part by soaring crude prices.

Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said fourth-quarter net income rose 14% to $11.66 billion, or $2.13 per share.

[Chulanowa]

20. I was wondering why a gigantic scream of "FUCK!!!" woke me up...

I was just hearing the entire state of Alaska turn on the morning news.

[Blue_In_AK]

21. Damn these fuckers.

I knew this would happen. Kicking us in the gut again.

[Blue_In_AK]

26. For Alaskans' feelings on this decision

check the comments after the article here: http://www.adn.com/exxonvaldez/story/446057.html

As horrible as this decision is, it may help turn Alaska blue in the fall. Gotta look for the silver lining. :(

[taught_me_patience]

27. Once again proving america is a country

of the corporation
by the corporation
and for the corporation.

This decision sucks.

[roguevalley]

30. we need to fuck the oil companies up here, fuck them hard.

they need to nationalize oil. You cannot believe how awful this was and ITS STILL HERE! NOTHING WAS FIXED! NOTHING!

My sister's business sold over 150K of clean up stuff to exxon and it was sent to Homer where it sat on the beach and rotted. THEY HAD IT ON THE FUCKING BOOKS AS CLEANUP EFFORT AND DID NOTHING WITH IT EXCEPT WRITE IT OFF ON THEIR FUCKING TAXES! FUCK EXXON!

[sammythecat]

31. Yeah, and I'll bet Exxon breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Like they never expected this kind of break.

I've become so damned cynical I think everything's rigged anymore. I'm tempted to think this reduction was in the cards for years, but they waited till now when relatively few people will even take notice or care. The original fine was large enough to satisfy everyone that justice was served. Years later, when it's no longer headline news, the penalty is reduced by around 80%. It would be easy for someone to convince me that this was the plan all along.

[jtrockville]

32. So... when they talk about drilling in ANWR...

Can we expect the same lack-of-compensation for damages?

[Uncle Joe]

33. Did they allow for inflation?

507 million is a drop in the bucket to those guys today as compared to the price of oil then.

[symbolman]

34. No mention of all the poor fucks who got SICK cleaning that poison Up?

my sis went on down there and worked, and she had some sickness but pkenty of others got wasted by it..

If you haven't ever Smelled Crude you haven't lived, she brought some back in a vial, one of the most wretched stinks Ive ever stuck a nose to..

Fuck Exxon - I've still got my Exxon Valdez t-shirt punctuated with a dead oily bird, and haven't bought Exxon Gas Since..

[tavalon]

36. Thank you

People look at my crosswise when I say I don't buy gas from Exxon or from Mobil (now that they've merged). People have such short attention spans but not I. I'm well aware that others have caused spills but it is the arrogance with which Exxon behaved following the spill that galled me and galls me to this day. Unacceptable!

[symbolman]

39. Welcome fellow boycotter For Life :)

My wife says this funny thing, "If you have Credit Card Debt, you're partially funding the Iraq War.." all these dollars are incrementally and exponentially changing our Reality, abilities to save the animals, the ecology, ourselves..

Plus like you say, they also Merge... I'm always reminded of some Alien Ameoba that squishes out or away from whatever it needs to take or avoid, splitting into more if it needs to dominate, a corporate Germ :)

Thanks for not adding to their ocean of money.. I keep telling people that Gandi had more than ONE idea, by using and exposing the True control of the Textile Industry in England he showed us more than Passive Resistance.

WE ARE Their Money. They shall not rule Except with Our Help.

Starve Them - Starve The Wars.

I like you too :)

[Fire Walk With Me]

40. Yep. Kick them in the money.

That's about all that hurts them.

[mudesi]

35. AMERICA IS A CORPORATE FASCISM (nm)

[scarface2004]

38. we should be thankful..

they didn t make us pay exxon instead of exxon paying us!