Exxon Plaintiff's Frustrated by Dramatic Cut in Damages
The Supreme Court reduced the payout from $2.5 Billion to $507.5 and Exxon Denies Interest is owed. The Supreme Court has left Alaska Fishermen reeling from the June decision reducing the judgment dramatically. Claimants have waited twenty years only to learn that the amount of their compensation has been arbitrarily reduced. Prince William Sound has yet to recover its herring fishery, and salmon prices have never attained the levels before the spill. Residents of Prince William Sound still report finding oil on the beaches near their homes. Citizens and fishermen alike believe that the court's ruling sends the wrong message to corporations. Fishermen in Homer, Cordova, Kodiak and other towns rimming the gulf of Alaska view the ruling as a hand out to big oil and an abandonment of the people's right to punish wrongdoers.
Anderson, Connell & Carey has being fighting to improve fishing vessel safety for 30 years. We have fought hundreds of lawsuits to penalize vessel owners for negligence and unseaworthy conditions. To date governmental regulation has been limited. For decades industry lobbyists have opposed inspection of fishing vessels and license requirements for shipboard personnel. 
