Past articles on New Jersey’s settlement with Exxon for 3% of what New Jersey demanded were posted here and on Insurance Claims and Issues Blog. To concisely sum up what was previously known, New Jersey sued Exxon for 11 years over pollution damage allegedly caused by Exxon. New Jersey demanded $9 Billion in round numbers, some $2.5 Billion for cleanup and some $6.5 Billion for “loss of use” damages for New Jersey residents’ loss of use of the land polluted by Exxon. New Jersey understandably hired outside counsel experienced in environmental litigation, a firm from New Orleans which reportedly will receive $45 Million from a $225 Million settlement announced by the Governor Chris Christie Administration after several weeks of published reporting on the settlement. The outside counsel must have been good; New Jersey obtained a judgment in its favor after a trial on Exxon’s liability. Then the outside counsel presented New Jersey’s case for an award of $8.9 Billion. The damages trial concluded and the parties and their counsel were awaiting the Judge’s decision on how much to award in damages – until, to all appearances, the case was abruptly settled.
Now, after we heard reports that Governor Christie’s people elbowed their way into the settlement negotiations and settled for 3% of New Jersey’s demand, leaks from the Chris Christie Administration have reported a new scenario. Supposedly, the Christie Administration has been negotiating a settlement of New Jersey’s 11-year lawsuit with Exxon since about 2012. Their negotiations have, so the story goes, involved the New Jersey Attorney General and other appropriate officials of course. See Benjamin Weiner and Kate Zernike, “New Jersey’s Exxon Deal Was Years in the Making,” p. A24, col. 1 (New York Times Nat’l ed., Friday, March 20, 2015).
Even if we accept this leaked reporting from the Governor Chris Christie Administration at face value, people experienced with litigation and settlements will note that New Jersey’s outside counsel, its 45 Million lawyers as it were, have said nothing.
Under this scenario, we are expected to believe that it was the lot of these outside lawyers to be humiliated by arguing for $8.9 Billion in damages when all the time their client was supposedly negotiating a settlement for 3 years of 3% of that amount.
If taking 3 cents on the dollar is a good deal, we have a right to expect that these private lawyers who are experienced in environmental litigation (which, to say again, is why New Jersey retained them) would “say grace” over the settlement. They would be rightly expected to give this deal their blessing.
Yet their silence remains.
Not only have New Jersey’s outside lawyers not said anything publicly about New Jersey’s 3% deal, but to my knowledge there have not been any reports even mentioning that these lawyers were involved in the settlement negotiations.
So, if this is such a good deal for New Jersey, where are New Jersey’s outside lawyers? Why were they not involved in the settlement negotiations that culminated in this “good deal”? Or if they were involved, why have we not heard from them?
Something stinks. And this time it wasn’t something left by Exxon.
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