ExxonMobil wins appeal over Maryland $1 billion pollution case
28 February 2013
ExxonMobil has won an appeal against the $1 billion in punitive damages awarded against the company over a 2006 gasoline leak that Maryland residents claimed had fouled their drinking water. A Maryland appeals court reversed the punitive damages ruling and returned the case for a new trial in Baltimore County Circuit court later this year.

ExxonMobil argued that the award, handed down in 2011 to 160 homeowners and businesses as part of a $1.5 billion jury verdict, was excessive.
Residents of Jacksonville, Baltimore County, claimed that a 37-day gasoline leak from an Exxon forecourt and tank farm resulted in 26,000 gallons of fuel polluting the area’s groundwater. The rural community does not have a public water system and relies on wells for drinking water.
Jurors in the original case in 2011 awarded $495 million in compensatory damages along with more than $1 billion in punitive damages, and found the company liable for fraud as part of their verdicts. At the time, Exxon said it spent $46 million on spill cleanup and had been fined $4 million by the state.
ExxonMobil reported the leak on February 17, 2006, but it had its origins five weeks earlier from a drilling puncture caused unknowingly by a contractor, the Court of Appeals said, adding that "shortcomings" in remediation efforts did not rise to the level of fraud, removing the basis for the punitive damages award.
Contact Details and Archive...