Intellectual Property Law

How Drunk Can You Be and Still Drive a Supertanker?

By Tim Armstrong, Derek Bambauer, and William McGeveran.

Pretty drunk, apparently. The key issue is whether you’ll drive it well, or instead plow into a reef and spill millions of gallons of oil into a fragile ecosystem.

My friend and colleague Colette Routel has written an amicus brief on the Exxon case (that’s the Exxon Valdez case). She’s also explained the case to the public on a C-SPAN debate this morning. (AOL version) (The perils of live TV: check out the first caller, around 8 minutes 50 seconds into the program. Warning: NOT work-friendly.) Colette’s brief is on the workplace culture of alcohol. Her areas of expertise include Native American law, natural resources law, civil procedure, and destroying the other side in litigation. (Jonathan Hacker is lucky she wasn’t the plaintiffs’ attorney…)

The case itself raises fun questions about the proper incentive role of punitive damages and how these function in pressing corporations to adopt proper safety, training, and monitoring programs. (Surprisingly, it’s not good to let a known drunk pilot your oil-filled supertankers. Who knew?) Let’s hope the justices get it right.

Update: Here’s a wonderful quote from Colette’s brief, which exemplifies why the Court should uphold the punitive damages award against Exxon: “[W]hen Captain Hazelwood returned to work after attending an out-patient treatment program, his supervisor actually held his back-to-work meeting at a bar, and ordered a beer.” (Brief at 29-30.) Having a corporate culture that enables alcoholism among supertanker captains and crew is the literal definition of “reckless.”

Full post as published by Info/Law on February 28, 2008 (boomark / email).