According to the LA Times, Bobert's version seems to be right. The punitives are apparently based on letting a drunk captain the shipL

"But Stanford law professor Jeffrey L. Fisher, representing the Alaskan workers, said Exxon deserved to be punished for 'putting a drunken master in charge of a supertanker.'"

It sems very strange, since a jury rejected that he was drunk at the time, and Leenia says Congress concluded the same.

He was a drunk but not drunk at the time?

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-scotus28feb28,1,2553954.story