MINNEAPOLIS – The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Monday to decide whether Exxon Mobil Corp. must pay punitive damages to the tens of thousands of Alaska fishermen and businesses whose lives were affected 18 years ago when the Exxon Valdez ran aground in an Alaskan waterway and spilled 11 million gallons of oil.

Also at stake in the seemingly never-ending lawsuit is hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees for the law firms that represented the Alaskans, led by Faegre & Benson of Minneapolis.

The high court’s decision is the latest setback toward settlement of the case, which saw a 1994 jury award of $5 billion and has been on appeal ever since.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year cut the damages in half, saying the amount was excessive. But interest, which mounts daily, has now reached $2.2 billion, bringing the award nearly back to its previous amount.

The Supreme Court will decide whether the Alaskan victims of the worst oil spill in U.S. history are entitled to punitive damages and whether the amount currently on the books is excessive.

“It’s disappointing,” said Brian O’Neill, the Faegre attorney who got his firm involved in the litigation. “In the end, this case says if you’re big enough and have enough lawyers, you can almost bring the (judicial) system to a halt.”

Because the Supreme Court rules on cases in the same term in which it takes them, a June decision is expected in the Valdez case, O’Neill said.

More than 30,000 Alaskans are involved in the class action. They were represented by 62 law firms led by Faegre and the Seattle firm of Davis Wright Tremaine.

Attorneys’ fees of 22.4 percent mean the payout to the lawyers in the case would be in the neighborhood of $1 billion. Not all firms would get the same amount. Faegre’s cut would be one of the largest at $100 million to $150 million.

The decision to review the case is not necessarily bad news for the plaintiffs, said Hamline University law professor Joseph Daly.

“This can’t make the plaintiffs feel good but it doesn’t always mean the Supreme Court is going to reverse the appellate court decision,” Daly said. “It may mean that the Supreme Court is interested in laying out (additional) guidelines for awarding punitive damages.”

Had the court not accepted the case, it would have been over and the Alaskan fisherman and residents along Prince William Sound would likely have gotten their cut of the settlement in January or February. Now they have to wait until some time this summer, if the award stands.

“Now our clients have to wait another eight, nine months,” O’Neill said. “It seems like this never ends.”