Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Judge delays huge oil spill payout

The Exxon Valdez case — pardon my metaphor. Wesley Loy photo

As you might recall, Deckboss reported in early September how lawyers for the thousands of plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez case were seeking to distribute the largest sum yet — close to $300 million in interest payments from Exxon Mobil Corp.

That post included a long list showing dollar amounts each person in the affected claim categories could expect.

Well, it seems we now have — big surprise here! — yet another delay in this marathon case of constant waiting.

On Oct. 9, federal Judge H. Russel Holland signed this order explaining why he can't yet approve the big money handout.

"The prospect of delaying that distribution troubles the court a good deal," Holland writes.

The delay has to do, in part, with a challenge from cannery workers hoping for additional payments.

Once the issue is resolved, and assuming no further snags, the distribution will commence in late November or early December, lawyers for the plaintiffs say.

That will take us through a full year since the process began to distribute winnings accumulated so far from Exxon.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

what else is new. i always thought that the claims were locked in years ago. this case in totally insane. appeals should stop now.

Anonymous said...

Well they should have divided the money equally between all, there would be less bs...

Anonymous said...

Cannery workers make what? $7 bucks and less an hour. most workers never return after 6 months on a ship!!! and you want to pay them WHAT? No I don't think this has affected them they all move on..

Anonymous said...

should have appealed years a go,if they where not happy with there settlement.everybody got paper work to send in for there percents and to appeal about 7 years a go.just because they lowered the settlement there not happy.nobody is but we all have to get over it and get this over with.

Unknown said...

ya i agree it needs to move on how many appeals and its supoose tobe over with hhow they can keep appealin after apeal it needs to end im even a cannery worker from those days i never got a dime for it even if they do it shouldnt be as big as the fishermans anyways