Exxon Valdez Has Passed into a Joke

Jarndyce and Jarndyce has passed into a joke. That is the only good that has ever come of it. It has been death to many, but it is a joke in the profession. ~ Bleak House, Charles Dickens

It has been 19 years since the Exxon Valdez spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska's Prince William Sound, fouling the fisheries and killing countless animals. It has been 14 years since a jury order the Exxon Mobil Corporation to pay over $5 billion in actual and punitive damages. The Chugach Native American group was forced into bankruptcy due to the destruction of marine life in the Sound. In 2002, a judge reduced the damages verdict to $4 billion. In 2006 the 9th Circuit reduced the verdict to $2.5 billion. The suit is still unsettled.

During this time fully 20% of the fishermen, Native Americans, and cannery workers whose lives and livelihoods were destroyed that day and who had won that lawsuit in 1994 have died. During this time Exxon has not paid a penny of the damages awarded. There is still oil on the beaches of Prince William Sound. The suit continues unsettled.

At the time of the lawsuit, $5 billion equaled Exxon's profits for one year. Today it amounts to less than two weeks of profits. It is a fraction of the $31 billion Exxon holds as cash on their balance sheet.

The suit continues and will be heard by the Supreme Court sometime this year. In keeping with the tradition of this case, I predict that the Supreme Court will refer the case back to the lower courts and start the cycle anew.

The little plaintiff or defendant, who was promised a new rocking-horse when Jarndyce and Jarndyce should be settled, has grown up, possessed himself of a real horse, and trotted away into the other world. Fair wards of court have faded into mothers and grandmothers; a long procession of Chancellors has come in and gone out; the legion of bills in the suit have been transformed into mere fills of mortality; there are not three Jarndyces left upon the earth perhaps, since old Tom Jarndyce in despair blew his brains out at a coffee-house in Chancery-land; but Jarndyce and Jarndyce still drags its dreary length before the Court, perennially hopeless. ~ Bleak House

Were I king (you still with me?) there would be a law requiring corporations to pay 10% of a settlement, nonrefundable, upon the filing of any appeal and an additional 5% each year the appeal continues. If a company and her legion of attorneys wish to pursue endless appeals they should pay for the privilege.