Recently, the district court in Cobell v. Kempthorne awarded the Indian plaintiffs about $455.6 million. This is down from the $7 billion on the table a while back.

And now, the Supreme Court has decided to defer a question on the mere interest of an award to the Exxon Valdez plaintiffs, including Alaskan Native villages, of about $488 million. And that is just on the compensatory damages award of over $500 million, far less than the billions of punitive damages awarded in the original verdict.

My guess is that the Court will keep driving these numbers down if they get a chance to the future.