Gulf coast oil spill

[Cicero]

Total. Mess.

I'm only in here to let Zen know I have decided to engage in the post count competition once again. You have been warned....

I'm not far behind?

[richlevy]

Let's take a moment to thank our Supreme Court, which whittled down a 5 billion dollar judgement in the Exxon Valdex incident that had already been reduced by an appeals court to 2.5 billion to 500 million.

Wow, I'll bet an angel earned his wings on that one.

The high court said that under federal maritime law, punitive damages shouldn't be any larger than the compensatory damages the company had already been ordered to pay. In other words, the company shouldn't have to pay more in punishment than the actual damage it caused.

The flaw in that is that Alaska was not made whole. Exxon was unable to clean up the entire spill, so those compensatory damages did not accurately reflect all of the damage.

If I remember correctly, Exxon had record profits that year.

With this kind of precedent on the books, LA and the surrounding states are completely screwed.

BTW, I doubt a pre-GWB court would have reached this decision.

GWB, the gift that keeps on giving.