Exxon judge sets $4.5 billion punitive damage award.(Reporter's Notebook)

Claims, March, 2004

In his third time hearing the case, Judge H. Russel Holland, a federal district judge in Anchorage, Alaska, ordered that Exxon Mobil Corp. pay nearly $4.5 billion in punitive damages for a 1989, 11-million-gallon oil spill in Prince William Sound. The judge also has calculated that the interest on the delayed settlement amounts to more than $2.2 billion, bringing the total award to about $6.75 billion, the Associated Press reported. Exxon already has spent $2.2 billion on cleanup and a further $1 billion settlements, fees, and penalties.

In 1994, a federal jury awarded $5 billion to the 32,000 fishermen, residents, and others affected by the spill who brought the suit. Exxon appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled that the award was...

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