They want a court that sides “with the little guy” regardless of the law. How long could we (can we?) remain a nation with a standard like that? Rather than moving to Cuba they want to move Cuba here. Amazing. Vote for B. Hussein Ocastro!
I agree with Al, once Obama gets in office things will get a lot better for the little guy. It will be a great day as long as some radical restumblican doesnt kill him.
You really have me on the ropes now, Dicky. I am obviously intellectually and occupationally overmatched by you, Mike and Rock. I tried really, really hard, but my feeble mind was unable to locate a point in your post. Love the “restumblican” made up word, by the way. My inadequate educational experience did not include an opportunity to enroll in a class to learn such skills.
Sorry Good Hands, yes you touched a nerve, but I didn’t mean to insult you.
I have an uncle who has been a fishmerman based in Juneau for years. The damage is still evident, and the fish population is still not what it was pre-Valdez.
The point was that the $500m is called punitive, but it is in place of compensatory. The total amount paid by Exxon is $500m, not twice that.
BTW, that’s less than one day’s revenue for Exxon. Those who think $500m is excessive are only looking at the amount, not the damage that was done. The damage caused by Exxon has added up to WAY over $500m, the lawyers just couldn’t prove it.
IMHO, what is so wrong with Exxon paying retribution? Do they not deserve to pay? Did they not do something wrong? Did they not promote somebody they knew to be an on-the-job drinker to captain? Did they not kill $100s of millions of dollars worth of fish? Not to mention the damage caused to the water, birds and seals etc???
If all they pay is enough to balance the harm they caused what is the motivation to ensure it doesn’t happen again? Punitive damages are there for a reason. It has nothing to do with hating business.
I prefer to avoid trouble, if possible…
You really think Barack Hussein Obama will make things better! A civil rights trial attorney in office making things better.
One minuite he’s islamic the next he’s christian. For 20 years he went to the same church but never heard the pastor speak. For the war today, against it tomorrow. White people invented the HIV virus to kill black people. (How horrible) The padded Countrywide deal. He has said he will raise taxes and leave gas at the price its at now.
Yeah thats change-
-what about common sense?
I take it you werent the one who got the good grades! If you were, I would ask for my money back, you got the shaft. (And the cubical.)
The Supreme Court’s recent decision to hear ExxonMobil’s reasons to void the $2.5 billion punitive award in the Exxon Valdez case hit the town of Cordova, Alaska, hard. This small coastal fishing community — my hometown — along with the Alaska Native villages in Prince William Sound have borne the brunt of the largest crude oil spill in America’s waters; a spill that took place more than 18 years ago, but one that continues to hold the region hostage.
The second painful blow was the high court’s decision to not even hear our reasons why the award should be restored to the full $5 billion that a jury of peers decided was necessary to punish the corporate giant back in 1994.
While media pundits, lawyers, and scholars play the Supreme Court’s decisions back and forth like a ping-pong ball, people in Cordova share a completely different perspective of this story. It’s not about whether the Supreme Court should hear the case. To us, it’s about justice and reparation — making us whole, a promise Exxon made to the community five days after the spill. A promise that Exxon broke before the trial even started five years after the spill.
To us, it’s about more than an oil spill, the world’s largest oil corporation, and a small fishing community in Alaska. It’s about America’s failed legal system that inherently cannot dispense justice in the face of corporate globalization.
U.S. corporations have outgrown America’s justice system. The system won’t work for any community in America that is traumatized by disaster that triggers class action lawsuits — hurricanes like Katrina, terrorist acts like 9/11, or oil spills like the Exxon Valdez. Yet sociologists warn such disasters will be a hallmark of the 21st century.
People in Cordova wonder how this happened and why our legal system no longer metes out justice. When did “punitive” stop meaning to punish? If the original punitive award of $5 billion was sufficient to change corporate behavior why was Exxon the last corporation to double hull its oil tankers to reduce risk of future spills rather than the first?
Why shouldn’t Exxon be expected to pay to clean up its mess, pay penalties for breaking laws, compensate victims for losses, and pay punitive damages? This is what responsible corporations do — and it’s certainly what Americans expect.
The spilled oil — somewhere between 11 to 38 million gallons (the figure is elusive because as we learned the hard way, the truth was one of the first casualties of the spill) — created a big mess and broke a lot of federal laws. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Exxon paid $2.5 billion for its cleanup and another $1 billion for penalties. But, it might surprise people who live outside Alaska to learn that taxpayers, not Exxon, paid a majority of that bill. Exxon recouped most of its remaining expense from its insurance companies and from money it paid to settle damages for natural resources — publicly-owned wildlife and lands.
Further, Exxon rewarded its primary cleanup contractor, formerly VECO, with a cost-plus contract that acted like steroids, bulking up this small-time oilfield service contractor into one of the biggest — spending, pro-oil lobbyists in the state — until its fall from grace this year under charges of federal bribery, conspiracy, and more. You may have heard of the ongoing FBI investigation that is sweeping Alaska’s politicians — from state legislators to congressional delegates — into its widening net.
While that’s another story, it serves to illustrate what our justice system deems “good corporate behavior” worthy of consideration to reduce its punitive award.
We ask all of you who share in the cost of this cleanup and the devastation of this spill: How could Exxon fool seemingly everyone into believing that the Sound is now clean, wildlife recovered, and fishing back to “normal”?
How could they fool everyone? Because the reality goes against the “good corporate behavior” meme Exxon has pushed for now nearly two decades in the courts, in the media, and in Congress.
This is our world, our reality: Three of Cordova’s five fish processors (canneries) went bankrupt after the spill. The largest one never recovered, leaving the town with not enough capacity to buy and process large salmon returns like this year. Further, the town lost it’s only locally owned and operated processor cooperative, leaving fishermen with fewer resources to leverage high grounds prices for their catch. The town tumbled from its ranking as one of the top ten seaports in the nation, based on harvest value, to 53rd after the delayed, spill-related pink salmon and herring population collapses in 1992 and 1993.
The salmon recovered; the herring did not. The herring fisheries are closed indefinitely. Fishermen who held $300,000 commercial fishing permits for salmon and/or herring fisheries at the time of the spill now own pieces of paper worth around 10 percent their former value — that is, the fishers who did not go bankrupt, lose their permit in foreclosures, take a loss and sell out, die, or commit suicide. Fishermen who buy into the fisheries now pay less for the privilege and expect less in return, while the spill survivors deal with ever mounting debt on permits that the fisheries no longer supports — and in many cases that exceeds their individual share of the punitive award at the full $5 billion.
This is our world, our “normal.”
I am a Survivor of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. I owned and fished a salmon drift permit in Prince William Sound until I sold out after the fish run collapses in the early 1990s. I have a stake in the Exxon Valdez litigation. But so, in a sense, does every American. Here’s why.
No other country in the world has a legal system that is as adversarial, costly, formal and complex as the United States system. At its core the American legal process is an adversarial system that pits disputing parties against each other before an impartial judge. Justice is “a zero-sum game,” meted out through punishment of the guilty to make the injured whole.
If the Exxon Valdez case is a harbinger of litigation to come, it does not bode well for people, civic society, or the environment. In this case, simply put, a giant corporation used its wealth to aggressively drive up legal expenses and to reduce, delay, and eliminate payment of awards to spill victims for more than 18 years and counting. By so doing, the giant corporation denied justice to thousands of people. In this case, the corporation is Exxon Mobil, but other giant corporations that do battle on class action turf wield similar weapons.
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They want a court that sides “with the little guy” regardless of the law. How long could we (can we?) remain a nation with a standard like that? Rather than moving to Cuba they want to move Cuba here. Amazing. Vote for B. Hussein Ocastro!
Reagan’s comments are beneath contempt – sounds like he is part of the No Nothings of the 1800s. Totally racist.
I agree with Al, once Obama gets in office things will get a lot better for the little guy. It will be a great day as long as some radical restumblican doesnt kill him.
You really have me on the ropes now, Dicky. I am obviously intellectually and occupationally overmatched by you, Mike and Rock. I tried really, really hard, but my feeble mind was unable to locate a point in your post. Love the “restumblican” made up word, by the way. My inadequate educational experience did not include an opportunity to enroll in a class to learn such skills.
Sorry Good Hands, yes you touched a nerve, but I didn’t mean to insult you.
I have an uncle who has been a fishmerman based in Juneau for years. The damage is still evident, and the fish population is still not what it was pre-Valdez.
The point was that the $500m is called punitive, but it is in place of compensatory. The total amount paid by Exxon is $500m, not twice that.
BTW, that’s less than one day’s revenue for Exxon. Those who think $500m is excessive are only looking at the amount, not the damage that was done. The damage caused by Exxon has added up to WAY over $500m, the lawyers just couldn’t prove it.
IMHO, what is so wrong with Exxon paying retribution? Do they not deserve to pay? Did they not do something wrong? Did they not promote somebody they knew to be an on-the-job drinker to captain? Did they not kill $100s of millions of dollars worth of fish? Not to mention the damage caused to the water, birds and seals etc???
If all they pay is enough to balance the harm they caused what is the motivation to ensure it doesn’t happen again? Punitive damages are there for a reason. It has nothing to do with hating business.
I prefer to avoid trouble, if possible…
You really think Barack Hussein Obama will make things better! A civil rights trial attorney in office making things better.
One minuite he’s islamic the next he’s christian. For 20 years he went to the same church but never heard the pastor speak. For the war today, against it tomorrow. White people invented the HIV virus to kill black people. (How horrible) The padded Countrywide deal. He has said he will raise taxes and leave gas at the price its at now.
Yeah thats change-
-what about common sense?
I take it you werent the one who got the good grades! If you were, I would ask for my money back, you got the shaft. (And the cubical.)
Joe, Exxon has already paid billions in compensatory damages. These are strictly punitive damages that are being talked about.
The Supreme Court’s recent decision to hear ExxonMobil’s reasons to void the $2.5 billion punitive award in the Exxon Valdez case hit the town of Cordova, Alaska, hard. This small coastal fishing community — my hometown — along with the Alaska Native villages in Prince William Sound have borne the brunt of the largest crude oil spill in America’s waters; a spill that took place more than 18 years ago, but one that continues to hold the region hostage.
The second painful blow was the high court’s decision to not even hear our reasons why the award should be restored to the full $5 billion that a jury of peers decided was necessary to punish the corporate giant back in 1994.
While media pundits, lawyers, and scholars play the Supreme Court’s decisions back and forth like a ping-pong ball, people in Cordova share a completely different perspective of this story. It’s not about whether the Supreme Court should hear the case. To us, it’s about justice and reparation — making us whole, a promise Exxon made to the community five days after the spill. A promise that Exxon broke before the trial even started five years after the spill.
To us, it’s about more than an oil spill, the world’s largest oil corporation, and a small fishing community in Alaska. It’s about America’s failed legal system that inherently cannot dispense justice in the face of corporate globalization.
U.S. corporations have outgrown America’s justice system. The system won’t work for any community in America that is traumatized by disaster that triggers class action lawsuits — hurricanes like Katrina, terrorist acts like 9/11, or oil spills like the Exxon Valdez. Yet sociologists warn such disasters will be a hallmark of the 21st century.
People in Cordova wonder how this happened and why our legal system no longer metes out justice. When did “punitive” stop meaning to punish? If the original punitive award of $5 billion was sufficient to change corporate behavior why was Exxon the last corporation to double hull its oil tankers to reduce risk of future spills rather than the first?
Why shouldn’t Exxon be expected to pay to clean up its mess, pay penalties for breaking laws, compensate victims for losses, and pay punitive damages? This is what responsible corporations do — and it’s certainly what Americans expect.
The spilled oil — somewhere between 11 to 38 million gallons (the figure is elusive because as we learned the hard way, the truth was one of the first casualties of the spill) — created a big mess and broke a lot of federal laws. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Exxon paid $2.5 billion for its cleanup and another $1 billion for penalties. But, it might surprise people who live outside Alaska to learn that taxpayers, not Exxon, paid a majority of that bill. Exxon recouped most of its remaining expense from its insurance companies and from money it paid to settle damages for natural resources — publicly-owned wildlife and lands.
Further, Exxon rewarded its primary cleanup contractor, formerly VECO, with a cost-plus contract that acted like steroids, bulking up this small-time oilfield service contractor into one of the biggest — spending, pro-oil lobbyists in the state — until its fall from grace this year under charges of federal bribery, conspiracy, and more. You may have heard of the ongoing FBI investigation that is sweeping Alaska’s politicians — from state legislators to congressional delegates — into its widening net.
While that’s another story, it serves to illustrate what our justice system deems “good corporate behavior” worthy of consideration to reduce its punitive award.
We ask all of you who share in the cost of this cleanup and the devastation of this spill: How could Exxon fool seemingly everyone into believing that the Sound is now clean, wildlife recovered, and fishing back to “normal”?
How could they fool everyone? Because the reality goes against the “good corporate behavior” meme Exxon has pushed for now nearly two decades in the courts, in the media, and in Congress.
This is our world, our reality: Three of Cordova’s five fish processors (canneries) went bankrupt after the spill. The largest one never recovered, leaving the town with not enough capacity to buy and process large salmon returns like this year. Further, the town lost it’s only locally owned and operated processor cooperative, leaving fishermen with fewer resources to leverage high grounds prices for their catch. The town tumbled from its ranking as one of the top ten seaports in the nation, based on harvest value, to 53rd after the delayed, spill-related pink salmon and herring population collapses in 1992 and 1993.
The salmon recovered; the herring did not. The herring fisheries are closed indefinitely. Fishermen who held $300,000 commercial fishing permits for salmon and/or herring fisheries at the time of the spill now own pieces of paper worth around 10 percent their former value — that is, the fishers who did not go bankrupt, lose their permit in foreclosures, take a loss and sell out, die, or commit suicide. Fishermen who buy into the fisheries now pay less for the privilege and expect less in return, while the spill survivors deal with ever mounting debt on permits that the fisheries no longer supports — and in many cases that exceeds their individual share of the punitive award at the full $5 billion.
This is our world, our “normal.”
I am a Survivor of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. I owned and fished a salmon drift permit in Prince William Sound until I sold out after the fish run collapses in the early 1990s. I have a stake in the Exxon Valdez litigation. But so, in a sense, does every American. Here’s why.
No other country in the world has a legal system that is as adversarial, costly, formal and complex as the United States system. At its core the American legal process is an adversarial system that pits disputing parties against each other before an impartial judge. Justice is “a zero-sum game,” meted out through punishment of the guilty to make the injured whole.
If the Exxon Valdez case is a harbinger of litigation to come, it does not bode well for people, civic society, or the environment. In this case, simply put, a giant corporation used its wealth to aggressively drive up legal expenses and to reduce, delay, and eliminate payment of awards to spill victims for more than 18 years and counting. By so doing, the giant corporation denied justice to thousands of people. In this case, the corporation is Exxon Mobil, but other giant corporations that do battle on class action turf wield similar weapons.
I agree with Mark.
I guess the truth hurts for many!
Jennifer,
Go eat your Activa and shut up like a good little girl