By James Vicini WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out the record $2.5 billion in punitive damages that Exxon Mobil Corp had been ordered to pay for the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the nation's worst tanker...
Here's a "hypothetical" - pay each of 5 supremes 1/5 of a billion each, and save 1.5 Billion by securing a "get out of jail free card". Possible? Probable?
This is an outrage!, and now that the "Surpreme 9" have spoken, there is nothing anybody can do about it.
Can the oil companie be that powerful?!
Did they get to the Supreme Court Judges?!
A company with 40 Billion Dollars in one years profits....
can't and won't help American citizens whose lives they have destroyed?!
Dissenting Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer would have upheld the award. They said "Congress, not the court, should set limits on punitive damages under maritime law."
This another case where the court is "making law".
Breyer said this was no ordinary reckless behavior case.
RELAPSED ALCOHOLIC
"The jury could reasonably have believed that Exxon knowingly allowed a relapsed alcoholic repeatedly to pilot a vessel filled with millions of gallons of oil through waters that provided the livelihood for the many plaintiffs in this case," he said
By the way .... isn't this the same bunch that put George Bush, with all his oil cronies, in power?
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