Gulf Coast oil spill's economic damage could be permanent
source: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-gulf-liability-20100507,0,6881150.story?track=rss&utm_sour...
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It took nearly 20 years for more than 30,000 Alaskan fishing boat operators, property owners and others to be paid damages after the Exxon Valdez tanker accident in 1989, legal experts note. A jury awarded victims $5 billion in punitive damages in 1994, but Exxon appealed. Fourteen years later, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, where justices cut punitive damages to $508 million.
"At ground zero in these disasters, there are people who are simply annihilated," said Mark Cooper, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy and Environment at the Vermont Law School. "If it doesn't happen in the first few years, it won't really help."
There also may not be enough money to cover the damages.
Although BP has agreed to cover the cleanup costs and economic losses, the liability for such losses — including lost profits of local businesses, property damage and the like — is capped at $75 million under legislation passed in the wake of Exxon Valdez.
The $75-million limit "seemed like a lot of money at the time," said David Pettit, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council who was then working for a law firm representing Exxon. "It never anticipated something of this scale, where there could be victims in five states."
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-gulf-liability-20100507,0,6881150.story?track=...
"At ground zero in these disasters, there are people who are simply annihilated," said Mark Cooper, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy and Environment at the Vermont Law School. "If it doesn't happen in the first few years, it won't really help."
There also may not be enough money to cover the damages.
Although BP has agreed to cover the cleanup costs and economic losses, the liability for such losses — including lost profits of local businesses, property damage and the like — is capped at $75 million under legislation passed in the wake of Exxon Valdez.
The $75-million limit "seemed like a lot of money at the time," said David Pettit, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council who was then working for a law firm representing Exxon. "It never anticipated something of this scale, where there could be victims in five states."
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fi-gulf-liability-20100507,0,6881150.story?track=...
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