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Exxon-Valdez Oil Spill Settlement Seeking 1,886 ClaimantsLawyers who represented Kodiak fishermen and others hurt by the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill are trying to get payments to hundreds of claimants who have moved or died since the case began.Related Content
Lawyers who represented Kodiak fishermen and others hurt by the 1989 Exxon Valdez Oil Spill are trying to get payments to hundreds of claimants who have moved or died since the case began. Money that has not been received by claimants or their heirs by a deadline sometime this fall will be sent to the state governments where the missing claimants live. In Alaska the money goes to the unclaimed property office, where the state holds it indefinitely until its owner claims it. In other states the money is eventually forfeited to the state. Of the approximately 35,000 people who originally claimed damages in the 1995 punitive case against Exxon, 1,886 claimants - about 150 from Kodiak - are now on a list of impaired claims because they are dead or could not be located to accept payment. They or their estates need to come forward to receive their claim. Some of the impaired claims may only be a few dollars. Others are as much as $50,000. In all, several million dollars of the $500 million court-awarded payment are impaired claims. Kodiak attorney Matthew Jamin was one of the many lawyers who represented those hurt by the oil spill. "People move and they don't think, 'Gee, I've got to let the Exxon Qualified Settlement Fund, know' or they got divorced or who knows what," he said. "If we send a letter to them saying we want to give you some money and nothing comes back, they end up on our impaired claims list. As we're distributing the last chunk of money, we're making a concerted effort to find as many of these people as we can." His staff has found about 10 people per day since they began working on the impaired claims list. Claimants have recently been found who now live in Sweden, Afghanistan, Great Britain and all over the United States. He is considering publishing the complete list of impaired claims in the Daily Mirror later this year before sending the money to the lost property office. For most claimants, the last payment checks were sent in December. This month the Exxon Qualified Settlement Fund is processing claims that have a lien on them for unpaid bills. In April and May it will address claims with multiple liens. The punitive case against Exxon on behalf of fishermen, Natives and municipal communities was one of several suits against Exxon over the oil spill. Exxon was originally ordered to pay $5 billion, but the sum was reduced by a federal appeals court and again by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008. An earlier case on behalf of state and federal governments was settled in 1991. That settlement created the Exxon Valdez Trustee Council with $700 million to spend on research and purchasing wildlife habitat for conservation. The council is also winding down as it spends the last of its settlement funds. The complete list of impaired claims can be viewed at www.exspill.com/Portals/5/documents/Exxon_rpt_EQSF_ImpairedClaims_110124.pdf. People who may have a claim can call 1-800-397-7455 or Jamin's Kodiak law office at 907-486-6024. Mirror writer Sam Friedman can be reached via e-mail sfriedman@kodiakdailymirror.com. |
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