Exxon is a popular oil company known for its oil supplies. The company had a major oil spill in 1989 in Alaska, USA, when one of their corporation tankers, the Exxon Valdes, ran over a reef during its oil shipping to California. If this company was to be sued, it should be sued in the Federal courts because what happened then can be termed as a civil case where there was negligence from this oils giant that caused a spill into the sea, which caused a lot of damage as many of the seal creatures were injured and killed. The environment got affected by the oil spill, which was a major impact on the ecological fiasco.
The people who depended on the sea for livelihood were badly affected by the calamity as there were no fish. So the fishermen did not have an income which brought about an economic loss. Exxon also chooses to hide the information to its clients and investors on the risk that faced the business from the greenhouse gas emission. The courts should consider this as consumer protection, and it should prohibit Exxon from engaging in what can be termed as the company’s climate risk ( Sypniewski, 2019). After all, it is bound to affect the environment hence affecting its potential consumers.
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Once in the federal courts, the courts should make Exxon pay for the cleanup costs, damages courts, and the economic loss caused by the oil spill (Keating et al., 2020). With a heavy punishment, it will be a lesson to Exxon and any other oil company to be more careful to avoid any oil spilling. Exxon would have a chance to appeal their case with the federal courts if they would not be satisfied with the federal court judgment.
References
Keating, K. S., Becker, S., Davis, I. F., Chandler, T., Slack, T., & Beedasy, J. (2020). Families Coping With Financial Loss Following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. Family Relations , 69 (5), 887-906.
Sypniewski, R. W. (2019). The Truth Hurts: Applying the Criminal Provisions of Federal Securities Fraud Regulation to Exxon's Concealment of Climate Change Concerns. Widener Commw. L. Rev. , 28, 223.