Texas Supreme Court: Agrees to re-hear ExxonMobil 'sabotage' case
ExxonMobil 'sabotage' case in do-over
The Texas Supreme Court today granted a rare do-over on its March decision to toss out an $18.6 million verdict against ExxonMobil, which was found liable for sabotaging oil wells in Refugio County.
The court originally ruled 8-0 that the landowners waited too long to sue ExxonMobil after discovering metal junk, dismantled pipe and randomly placed cement plugs in wells the company abandoned in the early 1990s.
ExxonMobil had failed to list many of the obstructions on documents that must be filed with the Texas Railroad Commission whenever oil wells are shut down.
When a new drilling company, Emerald Oil & Gas, tried to re-enter the wells a few years later, the unknown obstructions dramatically increased drilling costs and rendered several wells inoperable, according to court records.
Without comment, the Supreme Court today granted a motion for rehearing from the landowners, reported the Austin-American Statesman newspaper.
The court also will rehear a related case by Emerald.
After a 1999 trial, Refugio County jurors found that ExxonMobil acted with malice in plugging the wells after witnesses, many of them current or former ExxonMobil employees and contractors, testified that plugs and metal refuse were intentionally left at random, unidentified depths.
But on appeal to the Supreme Court, ExxonMobil successfully argued that the landowners did not meet a two-year statute of limitations when filing their lawsuit in August 1996.
The owners argued that the time limit did not begin running until 1995.
That is when the company’s well files — acquired from a third party — revealed that the Railroad Commission documents did not tell the true story of how the wells were plugged.
The 13th Court of Appeals in Corpus Christi agreed, noting that the extent of the damage — hidden so far underground — could not be discovered until revealed by the ExxonMobil files.
But the Supreme Court said the clock began ticking in July 1994, when Emerald sent a letter advising the O’Connors (owners) about cut casing and junk in one or more wells. The letter “conclusively” established that the O’Connors knew or suspected the wells had been damaged, the court ruled, meaning the family was two months late in filing the lawsuit.