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Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:14 From: Chaim Saiman Subject: SCOTUS - Exxon v. Baker
Dear Obligations Friends, Today brings another case that may be of interest from SCOTUS (the term is ending tomorrow, hence all the good stuff comes out now). In Exxon v. Baker the Court diminished the punitive damages from the Exxon Valdez spill from $2.5 bn (after an appeals court previously reduced it from $5 bn) to $500 million. The court rules that in admiralty, punitive damages should be at a 1:1 ratio to compensatory damages. A few points that may be of interest to this readership: 1. Since this case is decided pursuant to admiralty jurisdiction, SCOTUS here acts as a general common law court rather than in its usual capacity as a constitutional court. Thus the opinion contains a substantial amount of comparative data, without the usual bromides about international and comparative law. 2. There is somewhat of a "jurisprudential" debate as to whether it should lay down a hard and fast numerical rule for punitive damages, or whether it should rely on a more traditional "verbal" approach of articulating a standard. 3. Some in this audience, may take special interest in the Court's implicit rebuke of "scholarship paid for by industry" in footnote 17.
Chaim Saiman
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