Court Rejects Exxon Appeal of $815M Award to Former Mechanic Over Benzene Exposure

Exxon Mobil Corp. has lost its appeal of an $815.5 million compensatory damages judgment that was awarded to a Mobil gas station mechanic who developed leukemia after years of exposure to benzene in its gasoline.

On October 15, a three-judge panel of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania upheld the award, ruling in part that the oil giant’s challenges to the causation evidence and other issues in its appeal should have been but were not raised at trial.

The Superior Court panel also rejected Exxon’s claims that the award should be invalidated because it was “shockingly excessive and against the weight of the evidence.”

Plaintiff Paul Gill was exposed to benzene while working as a mechanic and gas attendant at an ExxonMobil service station in Potter County from 1974 to 1979. As part of his work, Gill used ExxonMobil gasoline to clean automobile parts, which was a common practice at the time. He did not wear gloves or other protective equipment because he did not know that he could be exposed to benzene in gasoline through inhalation and skin contact. Gill was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia years later in 2019.

He maintained that his exposure to Exxon’s gasoline some 40 years ago was a substantial factor contributing to the cause of his cancer and the leukemia has taken a “drastic toll” on his standard of living and his marriage. His complaint described a host of medical effects: He underwent blood transfusions and a stem-cell transplant; suffered loss of eye, liver, and skin function as well as chronic weakness, severe pain, depression and the stiffening of his joints and suffered from seizures and has gone into diabetic coma. Also, the cancer spread to his colon, liver and lungs. He has had to isolate himself from friends and family for fear that he will contract diseases from them.

Product Liability

Gill brought counts of negligence and product-defect strict liability against Exxon. In the May 2024 trial in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jurors heard evidence that ExxonMobil was aware decades ago that there is no safe level of benzene exposure and that Exxon failed to warn Gill of this dangerous and potentially lethal defect in its product, even though “the American Petroleum Institute advised its members, including ExxonMobil, that there was no safe level of benzene exposure in 1948.”

Exxon’s defense argued in part that Gill and his medical experts failed to prove that the gasoline caused his cancer. The oil giant maintained that instead of focusing on the gasoline product for which Exxon was sued, the plaintiff’s witnesses focused on benzene which is a separate and distinct product.

The jury sided with Gill. Jurists found that Exxon was negligent, that its gasoline was defectively designed, and that it had failed to warn about the known dangers of exposure to benzene in its gasoline.

The jury awarded Gill a total of $725,000,000 for the pain and suffering, embarrassment and humiliation, loss of enjoyment of life, and disfigurement that the leukemia caused him. The jury also awarded his wife $500,000 for loss of consortium. The verdict was later increased by roughly $90 million in delay damages, bringing the judgment to almost $816 million

Exxon moved for post-trial relief and sought a judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV), a new trial, or remittitur of the jury verdict.

The lower court denied Exxon’s post-trial requests. The firm then filed an appeal challenging the trial court’s rulings on a number of fronts in the Superior Court.

However, the appeals court denied the oil company’s challenges to evidence on causation because they had not been raised at trial and also denied its arguments on alleged juror misconduct. The court upheld the trial court in its decisions related to causation testimony from medical experts and its decisions not to order a new trial or reduce the jury’s $725 million compensatory damages award. The Superior Court declined to impose its judgment of a fair and reasonable award over that of the trial court.