Is The Exxon Decision By The Supreme Court Tor Reform?

Question

The supreme court reduced the verdict for punitive damages from 2.5 Billion to 500 Million. Exxon made a profit of 40.6 Billion dollars in 2007. They spent approx 3.6 Billion in cleanup costs,fines etc. The original verdict was for 5 Billion. The incident happened in 1989. Adjusted for inflation they owe 877 million. If you add a 4 percent interest rate they would owe 1.9 Billion. If you take the original 2.5 billion judgment amount at 4 percent interest and also adjust for inflation they should pay 8.5 billion. Instead they only have to pay 500 million in 2008 dollars on a 1989 judgment and have gotten the privilege of using that money the whole time to make more money. Essentially they are making a profit of 137 million if you add a government interest rate and combine it with the effect of inflation. Their lawyers fees are probably 60 million with interest. They have essentially paid nothing to these fisherman.

Here's the story

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/court-slashes-judgment-in-exxon-valdez/n20080625135309990027

Answer 1

Gee. A Supreme Court that legislates? Who'da thunk?

I wonder which provision of the Constitution they claimed was being violated by the punitive damage award.

I have also read the Court's "first" tort reform mandate: the case of Gore v. BMW of North America, in 1996. Interesting read, even though it was still obviously just plain legislating from the bench.

Why do we have a legislative branch?