The $5 billion punitive damage award against Exxon Mobil Corp. in the 1989 Valdez oil spill is excessive, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday, ordering a judge to determine a lesser amount.
An Anchorage, Alaska, jury decided in 1994 that Exxon should pay $5 billion to thousands of commercial fisherman, Alaska natives, property owners and others harmed by the nation’s worst oil spill.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said some damages were justified to punish the company for its harmful behavior, but that $5 billion — at the time the largest punitive damage award in history — was excessive. The amount was equal to a year’s worth of Exxon’s profits.
Oregon
Fighting the feds: The state of Oregon sued the U.S. government on Wednesday over a federal directive that essentially blocks the state’s assisted-suicide law. Attorney General Hardy Myers filed motions in U.S. District Court seeking to temporarily prevent the federal government from implementing a new order barring doctors from prescribing federally controlled substances to hasten the deaths of terminally ill patients. Myers also filed a lawsuit challenging the authority of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to limit the practice of medicine in Oregon by attempting to bar physician-assisted suicides.
Spokane
Hanford cleanup: Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said Wednesday he wants to dramatically cut the time and cost of cleaning up the Hanford nuclear reservation. In his first visit to the former nuclear weapons production site, Abraham also said he believed security for radioactive materials there was adequate. An existing plan that calls for spending 70 years and $300 billion to clean the Hanford site "is unacceptable. It seems too long," Abraham said. "We can achieve significant cleanup faster and without cutting corners," he said.
Task accomplished: The task force that helped capture serial killer Robert Yates will shut down on Dec. 31, Spokane County Sheriff Mark Sterk said. The task force was established in late 1997 with detectives from the county, city of Spokane and Washington State Patrol to investigate the slayings of two dozen women in or near Spokane. Yates was arrested in April 2000 in the slaying of 16-year-old Jennifer Joseph. Six months later, he was sentenced to more than 400 years in prison after he confessed to killing 13 women. Yates, a father of five and an accomplished military helicopter pilot, is jailed in Pierce County, where he is awaiting trial in the slayings of two women there. He has pleaded innocent, but would face the death penalty if convicted. His trial in those cases is scheduled for June.
From Herald news services
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