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If you leave the water running in the bathtub, turning it off three months later will not be the end of your problem.  


Keep that in mind when applauding the fact that 

 from its well in the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, that is a very good thing. 


But no, it's not the beginning of the end of the greatest oil spill we've ever had.  With apologies to 

, it's not even the end of the beginning.


The beginning isn't turning off the spigot. It's cleaning up the mess. And the spill was more than 10 times larger than the 


But let's assume that somehow, sometime, all the oil is finally removed from the waters and shores of the several afflicted states. That would be the end of the beginning.


What would be left after that? The biggest mess of all -- the damage claims of all those who suffered economic loss from the vast oil spread.


Awful as the Exxon spill was, it was largely limited to Prince William Sound, with a very small population. Almost all who sued for damages after the Exxon spill were fishermen whose livelihoods had been affected. There were about 35,000 plaintiffs.


But in the Gulf spill, millions of people will claim 

. Not only very large numbers of fishermen and processors, but those whose employment is linked to restaurants, resorts, hotels, vacation property, and all the other economic activity of a major tourist area.


It is imperative right now to understand what happened to the Alaska fishermen who sued Exxon. They waited. They waited almost 20 years.


They waited five years until the trial was over, and the jury had awarded them $5 billion in punitive damages. And then the real waiting started. Because they had to wait for the appeal. Fifteen more years. Honestly! (If that's the right word.) 


And at the end of that appeal, during which several thousand desperate fishermen had died -- because no mere mortal can outlive the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals -- the U.S. Supreme Court reduced the award by 90 percent. A new view of punitive damages had been enunciated by the courts, very difficult to predict by those who had filed their actions 20 years earlier.


Twenty years. Dickens had a case that lasted longer, but that was fiction. This really happened. 


And it's very important that it not happen again. This is the reason that a special fund has been established for the payment of claims, and 


There has been some criticism of this approach, because it bypasses the courts. And it is true that the safeguards of our legal system should not be lightly suspended. But guidelines will be established by the fund managers, and public attention will assure that they are adhered to.


Justice would seem to be better served by the procedure just set out than by delay so unconscionable that the very concept of justice loses meaning. 


There is a saying that justice delayed is justice denied. There is no clearer example of that denial than the Exxon appeal. It must not happen again. Turning off the oil must not mean turning away our attention. The most important part of the story is just beginning.


David Lebedoff is a Minneapolis attorney and the author of 

 (The Free Press, 1997), the story of the legal battle following the Exxon Valdez spill.

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David Lebedoff

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In the Exxon Valdez case, a relatively small number of claimants waited decades. That mustn't happen in the Gulf.

In the Gulf, biggest mess may be the legal one yet to come

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