(CN) — The California State Court of Appeals on Thursday ordered a trial court judge to consider state prosecutors' restitution claims on behalf of four commercial fishers affected by the 2015 Refugio oil spill.
At the same time, the three-judge panel agreed with the lower court that other claimants such as oil industry workers, whom the appellate court called "indirect victims of the pipeline shutdown after the spill," were not entitled to have their restitution claims reconsidered.
On May 19, 2015, an oil pipeline ruptured off the coast of Refugio State Beach not far from Santa Barbara, spilling 142,000 gallons of crude oil into the ocean over the next 35 minutes.
Miles of coastline was blackened by oil, killing animals and — for a time — crippling the local tourism and fishing industries. The cost of the cleanup was estimated to be around $86 million.
The rupture was linked to a corroded line, owned and operated by Plains All American Pipeline. In 2018, a jury convicted the company of nine criminal charges.
The company was fined $3.3 million. It was also ordered to pay restitution to a number of people and businesses who had been directly affected by the environmental disaster.
The trial court denied a number of restitution claims from people who had either participated in a mediated settlement or signed on to a federal class action, which would later settle in 2022 for $230 million. The lower court reasoned that holding a criminal restitution hearing would be duplicative with the class action.
This, the appellate court ruled, was in error. "Civil liability and criminal restitution serve different interests," Justice Hernaldo Baltodano wrote in the opinion.
"A civil settlement is between the victim and the defendant, but a 'restitution order [is] between [the defendant] and the state.'" he added, citing a 2019 appellate court ruling.
The restitution claims of four fishers, who say they were directly hurt economically by the oil spill, will now be remanded back to the trial court in Santa Barbara.
The ruling offered was a mixed bag for California attorney general's office, which had asked that other restitution claims — including some on behalf of oil industry workers — also be considered.
Judge Baltodano declined that full request, barring the oil workers from seeking similar restitution. Those claimants are "not entitled to non-probationary restitution because they were not the objects of the crime of unlawfully discharging oil into the ocean," he wrote.
Instead of simply fixing the corroded piece of line, Plains All American decided to replace the entire pipeline. But the project faced regulatory delays — and to this day, both the pipeline that burst and another nearby pipeline, also owned by Plains All American, remain closed.
Also still closed are a few oil platforms that relied on the pipelines. California Attorney General Rob Bonta argued that the those oil workers were also entitled to restitution from Plains All American.
The lower court rejected that argument, reasoning that they were “not victims of the crimes of which Plains was convicted.” On Thursday, the appellate court agreed.
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