After nearly 20 years, the last legal decision in the Exxon Valdez case comes with emotions ranging from disappointment to disgust.

For the plaintiffs it was a sweeping blow.

For big businesses, who want to put a cap on how much juries can punish a company for an employee's action, Wednesday is a victory, as justices cut the 2.5 billion in punishment money to just a fifth of that.

In about a 60-page decision, the five-to-three majority held what maritime law says about punitive damages. In other words, within sea law cases, if punishment money is awarded, it cannot be more than compensation damages. Thus, the justices reduced the 2.5 billion dollar punitive damages to half a billion dollars. This is in line with what the compensation money plaintiffs were originally awarded. This is far from the 1994, jury decision that Exxon should pay five billion in punitive damages. The Supreme Court was deciding if the plaintiffs should get 2.5 billion dollars— this after a federal appeals court cut that verdict in half.

Writing for the majority, Justice David Souter called the damages excessive in maritime law cases, saying:

    "In circumstances of this case, the award should be limited to an amount equal to compensatory damages."

But for the three dissenting justices, both Stevens and Ginsburg, the court Wednesday wrote a new law that should have been up to Congress. While Justice Breyer said:

    "The punitive damages award before us already represents a 50 percent reduction from the amount that the District Court strongly believed was appropriate. I would uphold it."

The court divided five-to-three, with Justice Samuel Alito taking no part in the case because he owns Exxon stock. If the court had split four-to-four, the plaintiffs would have

In this April 1, 1989 file photo, a float plane waits to taxi from an oil-covered beach in Prince William Sound, an inlet off the Gulf of Alaska. The Supreme Court on Wednesday, June 25, 2008, slashed the $2.5 billion punitive damages award in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster to $500 million. The court ruled that victims of the worst oil spill in U.S. history may collect punitive damages from Exxon Mobil Corp., but not as much as a federal appeals court determined. (AP Photo/Jack Smith, File)
received the 2.5 billion dollars.

Wednesday afternoon CBS 11 News spoke with plaintiff attorney, David Oesting, who explained to us the next steps:

    From here this has to go back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, where they'll have to amend their opinion to mirror the Supreme Court.
    Then this will be handed back over to Anchorage federal court to actually hand out the damages.

While the case, with interest, adds up to about one billion dollars, CBS 11 News is told Exxon could argue to withhold the interest. If that's successful, the plaintiffs will only get the 507 million, or about 15,000 dollars each.

If the award includes interest, each plaintiff will get about 30,000 dollars.

Oesting says this whole process should take about 60 days.

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