How to sue an oil company
By BRIAN O'NEILL
Minneapolis StarTribune
Last update: May 22, 2010
For 21 years, my legal career was focused on a single episode of bad driving: In March 1989, captain Joseph Hazelwood ran the Exxon Valdez aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound. As an attorney for 32,000 Alaskan fishermen and natives, I tried the initial case in 1994. My colleagues and I took testimony from more than 1,000 people, looked at 10 million pages of Exxon documents, argued 1,000 motions and went through 20 appeals. Along the way, I learned
some things that might come in handy for the people of the Gulf Coast who are now dealing with BP and the ongoing oil spill. Brace for the PR blitz.
BP's public-relations campaign is well under way. "This wasn't our accident," chief executive Tony Hayward told ABC's George Stephanopoulos earlier this month. Though he accepted responsibility for cleaning up the spill, Hayward emphasized that "this was a drilling rig operated by another company."
Communities destroyed by oil spills have heard this kind of thing before. In 1989, Exxon executive Don Cornett told residents of Cordova, Alaska: "You have had some good luck, and you don't realize it. You have Exxon, and we do business straight. We will consider whatever it takes to keep you whole." Cornett's straight-shooting company proceeded to fight paying damages for nearly 20 years. In 2008, it succeeded -- the Supreme Court cut punitive damages from $2.5 billion to $500 million.
(Continued here.)
Minneapolis StarTribune
Last update: May 22, 2010
For 21 years, my legal career was focused on a single episode of bad driving: In March 1989, captain Joseph Hazelwood ran the Exxon Valdez aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound. As an attorney for 32,000 Alaskan fishermen and natives, I tried the initial case in 1994. My colleagues and I took testimony from more than 1,000 people, looked at 10 million pages of Exxon documents, argued 1,000 motions and went through 20 appeals. Along the way, I learned
some things that might come in handy for the people of the Gulf Coast who are now dealing with BP and the ongoing oil spill. Brace for the PR blitz.
BP's public-relations campaign is well under way. "This wasn't our accident," chief executive Tony Hayward told ABC's George Stephanopoulos earlier this month. Though he accepted responsibility for cleaning up the spill, Hayward emphasized that "this was a drilling rig operated by another company."
Communities destroyed by oil spills have heard this kind of thing before. In 1989, Exxon executive Don Cornett told residents of Cordova, Alaska: "You have had some good luck, and you don't realize it. You have Exxon, and we do business straight. We will consider whatever it takes to keep you whole." Cornett's straight-shooting company proceeded to fight paying damages for nearly 20 years. In 2008, it succeeded -- the Supreme Court cut punitive damages from $2.5 billion to $500 million.
(Continued here.)
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