ABSTRACT
An oil spill will sometimes happen as a mere accident, the outcome of comparatively innocent sloppiness—behavior that may not deserve punishment. Liability for an oil spill, like any liability imposed in law, must be fair, not whimsical or arbitrary. Difficulties in fixing damages for oil spills distinguish oil spill cases from garden-variety tort cases. Much oil company lobbying has been directed at limiting corporate liability for disasters such as the Valdez spill. The effort has been not so much to limit liability for commercial loss, or the lost pleasure of tourists, or the costs of restoration, but instead to limit or eliminate liability for what economists call nonuse or existence values. Some economists have developed a technique for attaching an economic interpretation or dollar amount to nonuse value and nonmarket goods more generally: contingent valuation. Nonuse values may be compromised in tragic accidents like the destruction of a gravesite.
