Lifelong Astoria gillnetter Abby Ihander was an unwavering optimist.

After the infamous 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill shut down the Alaskan waters he’d fished for decades, he believed the justice system would set things right.

He signed onto a lawsuit against Exxon Shipping to recoup his losses, and, in 1994, when a jury awarded the plaintiffs $5 billion in punitive damages, Ihander expected his check would be in the mail soon.

For a while, 32,000 plaintiffs in the case shared his rosy outlook.

“The optimism was huge that there was going to be a payment,” said fellow Astoria gillnetter Jon Westerholm, another plaintiff. “Abby was one of the most optimistic of them all.”

But years went by as Exxon filed appeal after appeal, delaying the final judgment on the case and the settlement.

And, as it turned out, even Ihander’s optimism, fierce as it was, couldn’t outlast the tedium of the U.S. appellate court system.

Last year, Abby died on his boat while fishing in Alaska at age 78. He is one of 6,000 plaintiffs in the case of Exxon Shipping v. Baker who have died during the 19-year wait for a conclusion.

For the remaining plaintiffs, the wait should be over soon. In February, the case finally reached the U.S. Supreme Court – the end of the line for appeals. The justices are expected to issue a final ruling on punitive damages this month.

Local fishermen involved in the case say they’ve lost faith in the legal system as they’ve waited for what amounts to an average payment of $75,000 a person while Exxon-Mobil continues to make record profits.

“We’ve heard every year and a half – right down the line – the same statement: The check’s in the mail,” said Astoria gillnetter and plaintiff Jack Marincovich. “It just got put off, put off and put off.”

Mark Ihander

Abby’s son Mark Ihander, 56, also a plaintiff in the Exxon case, is heading to Alaska this month for a difficult season. It will be his first time fishing Cook Inlet without his dad alongside him.

Dozens of fishermen from the Lower Columbia River trek to Alaska every year for its lucrative summer salmon seasons. It’s a tradition that started in the 1970s when the effects of hydroelectric dams and new regulations reduced fishing seasons on the Columbia River.

About 1,300 of the 32,200 plaintiffs in the Exxon case are Oregonians; 5,000 live in Washington.

Mark Ihander said he’s given up on hoping for a settlement check.

“I’m not the optimist my father was,” he said. “We’ve been led down the path so many times, it’s like crying wolf.”

In the 19 years it has taken the court system to settle the case, Mark Ihander has been diagnosed with lung cancer, undergone treatment and managed a full recovery.

But the Alaskan fishery that once provided him with a healthy portion of his annual income is still struggling – in part, scientists have found, because of the harmful effects of the oil that seeped into salmon spawning grounds.

“It was a real viable fishery up until the spill,” Mark Ihander said.

Afterward, the price of fish and the value of fishing permits plummeted, and neither have recovered to their previous levels. Meanwhile, the cost of fishing continues to rise.

“I personally would have liked to have seen my father and the 6,000 other guys who passed away at least get some justification for the 50 to 60 years they all spent in Alaska,” said Mark Ihander.

As he leaves for this year’s season June 25, he realizes he could be on the water fishing as the Supreme Court rules on the case.

“If we win, we’ll have a big party until they raise the price to $5 a pound,” he said. “If we lose, we’ll go for 50 cents.”

Eldon Korpela

Astoria gillnetter and plaintiff Eldon Korpela, 81, spent 47 summers salmon fishing in Alaska.

Since the Exxon spill shut down the driftnet season in Cook Inlet in 1989, he’s kept a file folder of related news clippings. The folder bulges with special aftermath sections and anniversary editions, and it’s filled with yellowing stories on legal rulings promising settlement checks.

When the 987-foot supertanker Exxon Valdez ran aground on Bligh Reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in March of 1989, it spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil that spread over more than 3,000 square miles, killing thousands of birds and marine mammals, tarnishing shorelines and closing the fisheries many Alaskan communities rely on.

The Cook Inlet driftnet fishery, where Korpela, the Ihanders and many other North Coast fishermen had fished for years, was completely shut down for the year.

“There were people that went bankrupt,” said Gary Soderstrom, an Astoria plaintiff and president of the Columbia River Fishermen’s Protective Union. “People went through some lean times because the spill took the fish price away.”

Exxon-Mobil officials argue the company has already paid for the mistake with $3.4 billion in compensation, cleanup and fines.

But the thousands of plaintiffs in the Exxon Shipping v. Baker case contend the company hasn’t done enough to make up for their economic hardship. For 19 years, the courts have agreed, and for 19 years Exxon has appealed their rulings.

Fourteen years have passed since an Anchorage jury granted 32,000 plaintiffs $5 billion in damages to make up for the losses after the spill.

In that time, a district judge reviewed the case three times and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on it twice and cut the award in half.

After the death of his longtime friend and fishing partner Abby Ihander, Korpela retired from fishing in Alaska last year.

“He and I were partner boats,” Korpela said. “When he died, I figured I’m old enough now, and I quit.”

Jon Westerholm

Westerholm has been steering himself away from Exxon gas stations for 19 years.

“I haven’t bought a penny of Exxon fuel since the accident,” he said.

Last week he got a solicitation in the mail for an Exxon-Mobil credit card – and tore it up immediately.

Westerholm has tracked the slow progress in the Exxon case as editor of the Columbia River Gillnetter, a popular newsletter that goes out to commercial fishermen in the Columbia River Fishermen’s Protective Union.

According to the case files, the Exxon Valdez steered out of the shipping lane to avoid ice before it ran aground. Capt. Joseph Hazelwood had told the third mate where to turn back into the lane and left the bridge, in violation of regulations.

Plaintiffs charge Hazelwood was drunk before boarding the ship and argue Exxon knew Hazelwood, once treated for alcoholism, had resumed drinking.

Exxon’s lawyers say the company should not be held liable for punitive damages because of Hazelwood’s mistakes.

They cite an 1818 court ruling where a ship’s owner was not responsible for the actions of its crew and point out the Clean Water Act’s rules on illegal discharges of oil don’t provide for punitive damages.

In 1994, an Anchorage jury found both Hazelwood and the company had acted recklessly. In upholding $2.5 billion in punitive damages, the appeals court has since agreed with the plaintiffs that “spilling the oil was an accident, but putting a relapsed alcoholic in charge of a supertanker was not.”

Exxon appealed that ruling, though, sending the final decision to the Supreme Court.

“If they would pay us a little something, I bet all of us would just take it and go,” Westerholm said. “But here they are still fighting 19 years later.”

Jim Wells

While the court system has labored over Exxon’s appeals, Astoria plaintiff Jim Wells has been fighting as president of Salmon for All to keep the gillnetters’ share of the shrinking Columbia River salmon seasons.

He’s skeptical of what the Supreme Court decision on the Exxon case could mean for liquefied natural gas tankers traveling up the river, if the justices decide the company is not responsible for the damages its vessel caused.

Justice Samuel Alito has recused himself from the case because he owns Exxon stock, which leave eight justices on the bench to make a decision. An even split would leave the appeals court ruling intact.

Wells said over its 19 years in the court system the case has become a test of society’s values.

“This is a case of the corporation versus the little man,” he said. “If this case were to be thrown out completely, I can’t help but feel there’s no hope for the little man against the corporation.”