matclone

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080625/...aldez_court_dc

Note that unlike certain other recent decisions, this media account doesn't identify the conservative and liberal factions of the court. I wonder why?

FloggingSully

"Stevens and Ginsburg said Congress, not the court, should set limits on punitive damages under maritime law."

-The court is setting limits on damages? Does that sound like judicial activism to anyone else?

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sgallan

Tends to make you think that a Court that can annoy both the liberals, and the conservatives, is doing something right. Or is it left?

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matclone

An independent judiciary rocks.

buckeye125

While this verdict comes as no surprise, there is no easing of the pain of it's injustice. It is blatantly obvious that too many politician's palms have been lubed by the big oil companies. The recent rejection of the proposed "windfall profits tax" is consistent with this. How is it that Exxon has recently set ALL TIME record profits during a time of supposedly low oil production? Now punitive damages are overturned. See a trend here?

Compensatory vs. Punitive damages. To be (ir)responsible for the worst oil spill in history, causing (in some cases) irreparable damage to the ecosystem and local businesses.... paying compensatory damages 20 years leaves the "scales of justice" grossly unbalanced. Punitive damages are definitely warranted here, but were unjustifiably not enforced (seems like someone's been peeking through the blindfold...LOL). Example, if I litter, I may have to pay a $100 fine. That $100 is punitive, not compensatory. It doesn't cost the city $100 to dispose of my misplaced gatorade bottle! I have to pay additional expenses due to the inconvenience/damage that it causes to my fellow citizens. This is just another example of big corporations not being held accountable.

Cyclone85

As much as it pains me to say this, I don't like this ruling. I didn't have time to read the thing yet, so I probably shouldn't comment too much.

Someone please educate me what law or precedent caused the court to reduce the punitive damages so much.

Will anything be left of the 507-million dollars after the attorneys get done? This is a bogus punitive award in my estimation based on the present value of future income lost to the thousands of fishermen. The fishing still hasn't returned to the prior levels, though it is improving.

sgallan

I think this one was ruled mostly on a technical constitutional issue. It sort of sucks but the courts can't (or are not supposed to) rule on emotion, and perceived fairness; but on the law. If the liberal side of the court was the decider that is even more ironic because that side of the court would annecdotally be expected to rule for keeping the punitive damages as they were originally set.

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skipster

I don't think it sucks at all that courts rule on law, not emotion or percveived fairness. For thousands of years courts could rule on emotion, and they could kill anyone they simply did not like. Ruling on law alone, without emotion or perceived fairness, protects us all from unjust prosecution. Would you like it better if the court ruled on emotion and their emotion, in this case, was to award money to Exxon, instead of just canceling out some damages? If we allow emotion into the decisions, how can we besure of the just and equal application of the law?

That is a very telling sentence in your post, gallan. It speaks volumes.

RYou

If you look at batches of historic case law where punitive damages , and often compensatory damages that have been awarded, it is not unusual for a judge to set aside the original award(s) and set the value at something far less.

Juries tend to set punitive damage awards based on emotion since they're are not afforded a formula or criteria for calculating the award. Quite frankly, I'm surprised it had to go this far to have the original punitive award reduced.

As for lost yield for local fisherman, that value is more in line with compensatory damages, acting as a class that was financially harmed and tagged Exxon with an independent suit.

The decison was neither a liberal nor conservative one.

FloggingSully

The punitive damages have been reduced several times before it reached the SC. The jury awarded something like 5 billion in punitive damages and it was cut in half during the appeals leading to the SC.

__________________
There's no such thing as a pretty good aligator wrestler.