On the Record

A motions hearing scheduled for today was postponed in a mass-action lawsuit filed by Jacksonville residents against Exxon Mobil Corp. for a 25,000-gallon-plus leak at a local gas station in early 2006.

Lawyers on both sides have a bit more time to iron out their pre-trial issues, however – in July, Baltimore County Circuit Court Judge Susan Souder agreed to revise the case’s scheduling order, making the trial’s new start date Oct. 4, 2010. The case is estimated to end Feb. 28, 2011. 

The trial had been set for January, and Souder said during the July hearing the delay would also help ensure full staffing of the daily docket. Two of Souder’s colleagues, John O. Hennegan and Lawrence R. Daniels, announced earlier this year they would be retiring when their terms expire in November.

Because of the size of the case  — more than 400 plaintiffs, represented by The Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos – you can always tell when a hearing is scheduled: the daily Circuit Court docket online grows to 25 or more pages (compared to five or six on a typical day) and the docket shown on video boards in the courthouse balloons to more than 50 pages (compared to a dozen or so pages normally).

The last time I was in court for the first Exxon trial* it was kind of like Christmas morning (or the first night of Chanukah, if that analogy makes more sense to you). There was a sense of anticipation bordering on giddiness, in part because everyone was awaiting a verdict and because a five-month trial was finally ending.

The mood felt a bit different Wednesday as post-trial motions were heard. The courtroom was still packed, but that was in part because the hearing had been moved to a smaller courtroom. A majority of the plaintiffs who attended were the “die-hards,” the ones I saw almost on a daily basis during the five-month trial; the woman who brought needlepoint during testimony brought it Wednesday, too.  

I greeted a couple of plaintiffs I had gotten to know, including a few I wrote about in the aftermath of the verdict. Many had told me in March the verdict brought closure, so Wednesday’s hearing was, in a way, opening old wounds. But it seemed to me much of the anger and anguish had disappeared, as if the verdict did in fact lift a large weight off residents’ shoulders. In its place was some level of contentment coupled with the resignation (and possibly frustration) that they might be facing a lengthy appeals process before they see any of the $150 million the jury awarded four months ago.

Stephen L. Snyder, the plaintiffs’ lead counsel, touched on that point as he finished his arguments. He theorized that Exxon’s limited arguments on its motions (lead counsel James F. Sanders talked for less than an hour of the four-hour hearing) meant the company felt visiting Judge Maurice W. Baldwin Jr. would not drastically reduce the jury’s verdict, so it would save its arguments for the appellate courts.

“We just hope you’re not going to give Exxon a reduction that they are not expecting to get,” Snyder said.

His clients laughed and applauded.

 *Another set of plaintiffs, represented by The Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos P.C., will have their trial in January.

An Exxon station in Northern Baltimore county closed last week because of an underground leak that apparently went unnoticed for several weeks. Exxon has taken full responsibility for the problem and has agreed to reimburse those affected by the leak.

Sound familiar? In fact, this Exxon station is located on Mount Carmel Road in Hereford (I-83, Exit 27). And the underground leak involved brine, a salty solution used to prevent the gasoline from freezing. The brine, which sits outside the gasoline tank, entered a regular, unleaded gasoline tank through a hole in the lining, according to news reports.

The contaminated gas has caused approximately 100 cars to shut down, local mechanics said. The mechanics have to empty the car’s gas tank and replace its fuel injector and pump.

Exxon has set up a 24-hour hotline for any people dealing with car problems from the station. The Maryland Department of the Environment, meanwhile, is looking into possible fines against Exxon for failing to report the leak; it learned of the problem from a citizen who saw the station’s gas pumps closed one day last week.

Both Exxon and MDE have said the leak did not spread into the environment.

I had a bit of a flashback while watching “60 Minutes” the other night. Scott Pelley reported on residents suing an oil company over groundwater contimation, with alleged damages in the billions.

But this wasn’t Jacksonville — and it wasn’t ExxonMobil Corp. Rather, it was Amazon residents in east Ecuador suing Chevron Corp. for $27 billion for damages incurred during more than 20 years of oil drilling. Residents through a New York-based trial lawyer allege Texaco, now a Chevron subsidiary, didn’t clean up hundreds of pits filled with the byproducts of the drilling. Many of the pits have sat untouched for years.

The case, which has been going on for 16 years, will soon be decided by an Ecuadoran judge whose courtroom sits on the third floor of a shopping mall. How the case reached that point was the most interesting part of the story, as producers used old news footage to chart the lawsuit’s course.

The story has been criticized as a “PR job” for the plaintiffs. I wouldn’t go that far, but the video at the end of the story showing oil floating on top of an Amazon River tributary is pretty compelling.

At 7:15 a.m. on March 12, a couple of hours before a slew of residents and reporters descended on the Baltimore County Circuit Courthouse for the Exxon verdicts, Danny Jacobs was waiting outside the courtroom.

He’d been waiting for that moment for five months.

As some of our readers know, Danny had been diligently following the Exxon leak trial in Baltimore County.

To our knowledge, Danny was the only reporter to extensively cover the trial. He wrote more than 30 stories in total; as a result he became a familiar face in the courtroom, developing relationships with a number of the plaintiffs and lawyers from both sides.

Although there are still more Jacksonville residents who await trial with Exxon - and more work to be done on Danny’s end - here are Danny’s reflections of his coverage of the trial.

I used my Twitter account for the first time last week while covering the Exxon verdict in Baltimore County Circuit Court. Turns out I chose to start using the “micro-blogging” site (which limits entries to 140 characters or less) just as ”tweets” in the legal process were making headlines.

Earlier this month, a federal judge allowed a reporter in Kansas to “tweet” from a federal racketeering gang trial. Lawyers were worried jurors would read the posts, but a federal judge ruled jurors are already told to avoid news accounts of their trial, and Twitter would be no exception.

Then, on Friday, an Arkansas company said it would appeal a $12.6 million verdict because a juror tweeted during the trial. One of the posts read: “I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money.”

The company’s lawyer said the messages demonstrate the juror “was predisposed toward giving a verdict that would impress his audience.”

All of this Twitter talk makes arguments about cameras in the courtroom seem kind of quaint, don’t you think?

Stephen Snyder was denied the billion-dollar verdict he had hoped for — the first of his career — but it’s hard to feel too sorry for him. His team estimates today’s total award in this lawsuit, stemming from a five-week, 26,000-gallon gasoline leak at a Jacksonville Exxon station, at $150 million.  (I may have missed one, but it’s at least the fifth verdict above $100M of Snyder’s career.)

Still, the jury rejected claims of fraudulent concealment, which means no punitive damages, which means no billion-dollar verdict. As a result, I’ve already heard a couple people refer to this as a loss. They figure Snyder set the bar at a billion, then failed to clear it. What do you think?

A verdict - or, more accurately, 88 verdicts - will be announced at Baltimore Co. Circuit Court tomorrow morning in the billion-dollar litigation against ExxonMobil Corp.

We’ve got it covered.

For instantaneous coverage from the scene, you can follow @TDRdanny and @mddailyrecord on Twitter (or, if you’re not a Twitter user, you can simply visit their Twitter webpages here and here and refresh for updates.)

We’ll post the story on our Web site - and distribute it via email - as fast as our fingers can type.

And, we’ll have a photographer and videographer in Towson to capture multimedia.

Like I said - we’ve got it covered.

JACKIE SAUTER, Web Editor 

I don’t think James F. Sanders and Stephen L. Snyder will be exchanging holiday cards any time soon.

To be sure, the lead counsels for ExxonMobil Corp. and Jacksonville residents, respectively, have maintained a professional relationship during the five-month trial stemming from a 25,000-gallon gasoline leak in early 2006. And I have seen them exchange the occasional laugh in the courtroom during breaks.

But after butting heads so many times since October, you get the sense they’d be happy not to see one another again once the case ends.

(It should be noted the same could be said of all of the lawyers on both sides of the case, as witnessed by a courtroom scuffle that nearly erupted last month.)

I was reminded of this as Sanders began his closing argument today. Snyder, during his time before the jury, frequently called Exxon’s behavior shameful and wondered aloud how Sanders would explain certain issues the plaintiffs raised.

Sanders began his closing by laying down some ground rules — he would not answer every inaccuracy or claim unsupported by evidence raised by Snyder.

“All that does is aggravate the confusion he has so skillfully created,” he said.

Sanders then had this to say about Snyder:

“He’s an absolute handful. You’ve got to love him. But I don’t agree with how he has mangled the facts. In my wildest imagination, I would’ve never come up with some of the theories or stating of facts he has come up with. It’s brilliant. It’s wrong, but it’s brilliant.”

I’m still not sure whether that is a compliment, backhanded compliment or a little of both.

DANNY JACOBS, Legal Affairs Writer

Back in January, the day before the Baltimore Ravens beat the Tennessee Titans in a playoff game, jurors in the Jacksonville residents’ billion-dollar lawsuit against ExxonMobil Corp. wore Ravens’ paraphernalia. Many of the plaintiffs’ lawyers from Snyder, Weltchek & Snyder wore purple ties or had purple beads around their necks. (Lawyers for Exxon, it should be noted, might not have shown their Ravens’ leanings out of respect for the company’s lead counsel, who are based in Nashville.)

The last person to enter the courtroom that day was the plaintiffs’ lead counsel, Stephen L. Snyder. And when he took off his overcoat, he was wearing a purple suit, much to the delight of everyone in the courtroom.

I mention perhaps my favorite anecdote from the five-month trial to illustrate that most of the light-hearted moments have involved — or were directly caused by — Snyder throughout the proceedings. This Monday was no exception, as Snyder provided a few laughs during the start of his closing argument.

— The always nattily-attired Snyder thanked the jurors for sitting on a trial that has lasted longer than everyone expected. “I almost ran out of suits,” he deadpanned.

— Snyder was in the middle of a point when he was interrupted by his co-counsel, Robert J. Weltchek, who made a correction. Snyder thanked Weltchek and smiled. “One more time and I’ll throw you out of here,” Snyder said.

— A comic strip-like cartoon, part of the plaintiffs’ PowerPoint presentation, illustrated Exxon’s unresponsiveness to an actual leak alarm from a leak detection system because the detector often went off for reasons other than a leak. It featured a boy holding a bucket filled with water. Snyder said the boy’s name was “Peter.”

This touched off murmurs about mixing up children’s stories. The main character in the fable “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”, it was later determined, is not necessarily the same character as in the early 20th century musical composition “Peter and The Wolf.” Snyder held his ground.

“Well, I call him ‘Peter,’” he said.

DANNY JACOBS, Legal Affairs Writer