The Supreme Court ignored this mountain of evidence, retried the case for the District Court and concluded Exxon's conduct over a 12-year period was not malicious, was not intentional and was not undertaken primarily for financial gain. The Court was clearly wrong on all three counts.
Then the Court noted that a majority of states allow punitive damages to be three times actual damages. This rule of the majority was thrown out because some states did not, leading to inconsistent results. A ratio of one rather than three was deemed "appropriate".
The Court decreed that consistency is an adequate substitute for fairness and then decreed that low awards are more fair than high ones, ignoring the possibility that high awards may be justified. Particularly to punish conduct such as exhibited by Exxon.
The Court properly noted the intent of punitive damages is to punish the defendant and deter similar actions in the future. The Court then reduced the punitive damages to such an extent that Exxon will be neither punished nor deterred.
The District Court that actually tried the case and heard the evidence determined punitive damages should be $5 billion, $4 billion and $4.5 billion plus interest. The District Court of Appeals determined punitive damages should be $2.5 billion.
In the interest of "predictability", the Supreme Court reduced Exxon's punitive damages to $502.5 million. But the economic destruction occurred 19 years ago. Using a 6 percent interest rate, the value of $1 increases to $3.02 after 19 years. Meaning the damages can be paid now with roughly $166 million placed in escrow when the disaster occurred. This is less than half the $351 million golden parachute awarded to Exxon CEO Lee Raymond in April 2006 following his retirement - roughly 20 times the $8.2 million in donations made by Exxon employees to Republicans since 1990, the year after the disaster occurred. In 2000, Exxon was the second-largest contributor to George Bush's campaign. Exxon was outbid by Enron.
This decision wasn't a matter of imposing "fair and reasonable" punitive damages. This was a matter of brazenly legislating from the bench to protect the interests of America's richest corporation at the expense of America's much less rich citizens. Some would say a sellout: Yet more evidence the "independent" third branch of the federal government has become an enemy of the people. I and millions of other American patriots would agree. azchuck
