May the latest oil spill victims fare better

Lawyer Brian O'Neill's thought-provoking Perspectives piece ("If You Sue BP: Here Are Some Lessons I Learned From Battling Exxon," May 18) graphically summarizes the insuperable challenges inherent is attempting to get Big Oil to pay for massive spill damages, as in the 1989 Exxon Valdez megadisaster off Alaska's shores.

But it doesn't begin to tally up the untold billions in human losses suffered by fisher folk and Gulf of Alaska shoreline dwellers whose livelihoods, families, homes and lives were destroyed by Exxon's negligence, followed by its 20-year court battle to avoid paying damages for the destruction spawned when it failed to restrain the alcoholic captain who drove Exxon's ship onto a well-documented reef.

Thousands of impoverished plaintiffs have died in the long interim who will never receive their just compensation. And the thousands who survive them will never be adequately compensated for the ruination they continue to endure, receiving, if they're lucky, pennies on the dollar for their deprivations. While the litigation has finally ended, the human and environmental losses continue to mount ad infinitum.

One hopes the lessons Mr. O'Neill recounts will be applied in the aftermath of the ongoing BP tragedy in the Gulf of Mexico to ensure that Gulf victims won't suffer the same odious fate as their Alaska counterparts.

JOE LaROCCA
North East, Pa.