I. Introduction and Background.
A. Prince William Sound, Alaska.
In the early morning hours of March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez supertanker, captained by Joseph Hazelwood, ran aground on Bligh Reef resulting in the spill of 11 million gallons of oil into the waters of Prince William Sound, Alaska. One fact, albeit disputed, cited by the press, the State of Alaska and the United States was that Captain Hazelwood, a recovering alcoholic, was in charge of the vessel and allegedly under the influence of alcohol and in his cabin at the time of the collision. A tremendous public outcry and condemnation of Exxon followed this tragedy, despite its expenditure of billions of dollars in clean-up costs and manpower expenditures in seeking to minimize the damage to the environment. The Alaskan and United States governments filed both criminal and civil suits against Exxon premising those in part upon its alleged negligence in allowing a recovering alcoholic to command an oil tanker and maintaining employment policies which would permit such assignments. As a result of the litigation following the accident, and including the incurred clean-up costs, Exxon faced a loss of some eight billion dollars–enough to bankrupt most companies or even nations.