Ala.: Exxon Mobil Order Likely to Stand

Riley said he will talk to the state's attorneys before making a decision, but he indicated it's unlikely the justices would change their minds in the lopsided case.

"With an 8-1 verdict, why would you continue that?" he told reporters while in the Mobile area for the groundbreaking for a steel plant.

Exxon Mobil attorney Dave Boyd has the same view as Riley.

"We believe any further review will result in the same decision," he said Thursday night.

Jere Beasley, a Montgomery lawyer who was part of the state's legal team, said the state has no appeal options other than asking for the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision.

"In my opinion this winds it up if they don't grant rehearing," he said Friday.

Alabama won the $3.6 billion judgment in 2003 in a lawsuit accusing Exxon Mobil of intentionally underpaying royalties due the state from natural gas wells drilled in state-owned waters along the Alabama coast.

The Supreme Court ruled there was no proof of fraud by Exxon Mobil and threw out all punitive damages, which made up most of the judgment. The state's highest court left $51.9 million in compensatory damages, plus interest to be determined later.

Attorneys said the interest payments could end up pushing the final amount to about $100 million.

In the Supreme Court's decision, it said the way the state conservation department interpreted some payments due by Exxon Mobil was correct. That will result in Exxon Mobil having to make more payments to the state, plus interest, from the time of the trial to the present. Attorneys said that will be millions on top of the compensatory damages, but they were not immediately sure how many.

Whatever the amount, it's still far short of what former state Conservation Commissioner Jim Martin hoped the state would get when he started auditing Exxon Mobil's royalty payments to the conservation department in 1996. Those audits led to the state's lawsuit.

"This is a case where Exxon cheated the state," Martin said Friday.

Martin, a former Republican congressman from Gadsden, said he disagrees with the Supreme Court's characterization of the case as a breach of contract dispute. Martin said he will always believe that top executives at the oil company set out to take advantage of Alabama because the state was new to the natural gas business.

Exxon Mobil general counsel Charles Matthews sees it differently.

"This ruling indicates that the Alabama Supreme Court agrees with Exxon Mobil's position that this case stems from a contract dispute over a poorly drafted lease agreement. It's a dangerous precedent for a state to be able to charge someone with fraud if you don't agree with its interpretation of a contract," he said.

Associated Press writer Garry Mitchell in Mobile contributed to this report