WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether Exxon Mobil Corp. should pay $2.5 billion in punitive damages to victims of the huge Exxon Valdez oil spill that fouled more than 1,200 miles of Alaskan coastline in 1989.
The high court stepped into the long-running battle over the damages Exxon Mobil owes from the supertanker accident in Prince William Sound, the worst oil spill in U.S. history. The Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef, cracking its hull and spilling 11 million gallons of oil.
Hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine animals died as a result.
The award, even after it was cut in half by a federal appeals court in December, would be the largest punitive damages judgment ever. A jury in Alaska awarded $5 billion in damages in 1994 and the company has been appealing the verdict ever since.
Arguing against Supreme Court review, lawyers for the plaintiffs, some of whom have died, said the damages award is “barely more than three weeks of Exxon’s net profits.”
The plaintiffs still living include about 33,000 commercial fishermen, cannery workers, landowners, Native Alaskans, local governments and businesses.
Justices said they would consider whether the company should have to pay damages at all under the Clean Water Act and centuries-old laws governing shipping.
Exxon said it already has paid $3.4 billion in cleanup costs and other penalties resulting from the oil spill.
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