High Court Action: Day 1

Oct. 2 <br> -- Exxon Mobil Loses Appeal Fla. Prayer Ruling Set Aside ‘Norm’ and ‘Cliff’ Can Sue Boy Loses Suspension Fight Court: Law Exempts Bisexual Harassers

Court Lets Valdez Award Stand

The Supreme Court today refused to free Exxon MobilCorp. from having to pay $5 billion in damages for the 1989 ExxonValdez oil spill in Alaska, the nation’s worst ever.

The high court, acting without comment, letstand the award stemming from the tanker spill that polluted morethan 1,000 miles of shoreline, killed tens of thousands of birdsand marine mammals and disrupted fishing.

The Exxon order was among dozens released by the court on thefirst day of its new term.

Lawyers for Exxon Mobil had urged the justices to throw out thepunitive-damages award on grounds of irregularities during jurydeliberations.

In one of several challenges to the $5 billion award imposed bya federal jury in 1994, Exxon Mobil attacked the behavior of DonWarrick, a court bailiff who escorted the jury and served food toits members during five months of trial and deliberations inAnchorage.

Warrick admitted that in a conversation with one of the ExxonValdez trial jurors he pulled out his gun and removed one of itsbullets before saying another juror — one holding out againstmaking a punitive-damages award — should be put “out of hermisery.”

Warrick, who said he was only joking, was fired. He died in1996.

The Exxon Valdez hit a charted reef in Prince William Sound inMarch 1989 and spilled 11 million gallons of Alaska crude oil.

School Prayer Ruling Set Aside

The court also set aside a ruling that letpublic school students in a Florida county choose a class member togive a prayer or other message at high school graduations.

The justices today ordered a federal appeals court torestudy the case in light of their decision last June to barstudent-led prayers at public high school football games. Thejustices said such prayers violated the constitutionally requiredseparation of government and religion.