Outlander of the Day ~ AVALA's Skip Tucker

ExxonMobil's former CEO Lee Raymond is pictured to the left. He was seemingly very happy when the image was captured, and who wouldn't be earning $686 million from 1993 to 2005. That's $144,573 per day! Lee's smile is gracing this post as I simply can't locate an image of Skip Tucker, the Executive Director of Alabama Voters Against Lawsuit Abuse (AVALA). I also couldn't find an image of AVALA's Chairman Lewis Fuller when he was my Outlander of the Day just Monday for being intentionally or merely negligently stupid.

Skip's Letter to the Editor appears is in my home town Randolph Leader today discussing the "righteous verdict" (Note how Lewis found a right wing think tank's study "righteous" in his shilling that I referenced above.) by the Alabama Supreme Court's eight "erudite and fair" Republican justices in reversing a huge judgment regarding Exxon's failure to do right by the State of Alabama in offshore gas leases they'd negotiated way back in day.

This was a simple contract dispute" claims Skip. Also, AVALA has apparently been studying up on punitive damages. They, perhaps even old Skip even, certainly didn't understand them in my only face to face contact with AVALA. I guess Skip couldn't get this Montgomery Advertiser rant into The Leader? It's not every day you get to read "socialistic" twice in the same piece.

Skip referenced a 2004 Hunt case that was the "same lease, same lawsuit, same basic facts, same outcome" yet left out the fact that the original trial in this very case filed in 1999 saw a jury verdict in favor of the State for $87.7 million in compensatory damages and $3.42 billion in punitive damages. The Alabama Supreme Court reversed and remanded on an evidence issue. The second trial yielded a verdict against Exxon of $102.8 million in compensatory damages, part of that involving interest, and nearly $12 Billion in punitives.
Circuit Judge Tracy McCooey, a Democrat, cut the punitive damages to $3.5 billion.

The court's lone Democrat, Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb dissented, saying that Exxon had engaged in "the appropriation of this state's resources by deceit." I've previously noted that Whacky Tacky Tom Parker wrote the opinion, that seven of his GOP allies joined, that saved Exxon five weeks of their profits from last year. Imagine what Alabama could have done with this money!

Joey King, a schoolteacher in Montgomery that is 100% Democrat, served as the foreman of the jury that returned the second verdict. He, admittedly goofing up as the "convict" language isn't applicable to a civil trial, said

The reason we had such a large amount was we knew we had to get Exxon's attention. We were one hundred percent sure they had defrauded the state. The evidence, letters from their own attorney's warning the company they were not paying the correct amounts to the state, that's all we needed to convict.

Please note that Exxon Mobil is alleged to have been willing to buy scientists off to help them with climate change issues. Hell, they've poured $8 million into various "think tanks" to shill their lines on climate change. Finally, Scott Horton of Harper's also weighs in The Best Justice Money Can Buy pointing out the huge contributions made to the GOP members of the court bu Big Oil and Big Business groups. Peace ... or War!