[seadog] ...one more time

Friday June 14, 10:35 pm Eastern Time
Reuters Company News
Jury selection starts in Exxon Valdez civil suit

By Yereth Rosen 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, June 14 (Reuters) - Jury selection began Friday in a
trial in Alaska Superior Court over claims from the Exxon Valdez oil spill,
which blackened Alaska shores 13 years ago. 

The trial will consider the claims of six coastal municipalities where
public officials say they spent so much time coping with spill-related
problems -- acquiring cleanup equipment, meeting with Exxon (NYSE:XOM -
News) officials, protecting local tidelands and other tasks -- that they
were diverted from the normal duties. 

The cities and villages are seeking $12 million in compensation for the lost
public services, said plaintiff attorney Brian O'Neill. Including interest,
the total sought is $30 million, he said. 

Plaintiffs in the case are the Kodiak Island Borough, the cities of Seward
and Cordova and the villages of Old Harbor, Larsen Bay and Port Lions. 

Potential jurors filled out questionnaires Friday, and are to be interviewed
by attorneys Monday, O'Neill said. Opening arguments are expected midweek,
he said. 

Exxon Mobil had already spent more than $2 million compensating the six
municipalities for legitimate and documented spill-related expenses, said
company spokesman Tom Cirigliano. These additional claims did not fall into
that category, he said. 

"We haven't seen them produce any kind of legitimate reason for the
charges," he said. 

The plaintiff cities, like other local governments in the area, were
compensated through a fund set up by Exxon immediately after the spill,
Cirigliano said. 

"Any legitimate claims we pay," he said. "All this is a matter of
accounting." 

The six municipalities' claims were dismissed by Superior Court Judge Brian
Shortell as not compensable. But a 1999 state Supreme Court decision
declared that such claims were valid under state law, and the case was
resurrected. 

The Exxon Valdez disaster, the worst tanker spill in U.S. waters, polluted
more than 1,200 miles of shoreline, killed hundreds of thousands of birds
and thousands of marine mammals and forced commercial fisheries closures. 

In 1994, a U.S. District Court jury ordered Exxon to pay a $5 billion
punitive fine for the spill. Exxon challenged the verdict, and last year,
the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it was excessive, and sent the
case back to the trial court for adjustment of the verdict. 

Exxon Mobil estimates it spent $2.2 billion on the cleanup and $300 million
in a compensation program that included local governments. 

Exxon also settled state and federal natural resource claims in 1991 for
$1.025 billion. The money was paid over 10 years, with most of it going into
a special restoration fund. 

Exxon reached much smaller settlements with other plaintiffs, such as Alaska
Natives who temporarily lost their subsistence harvests and other
municipalities. 



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