Veep Nominee Palin and the Exxon Valdez Case A lawyer for the class of Alaskan commercial fishers who sought punitive damages stemming from the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989 confirmed this afternoon that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin -- Sen. John McCain's pick for vice president -- and her husband Todd, both commercial fishers at the time, could have qualified as members of the class. But neither filed claims by the deadline this past February. "They were both eligible to participate," says Stanford Law School professor and Davis Wright Tremaine partner Jeffrey Fisher, who argued on behalf of the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court last term. Then and now, Todd Palin fished for salmon in Bristol Bay, which is far from Prince William Sound where the devastating spill occurred. But Fisher said that early in the litigation, the "mandatory punitive damages class" was defined to include both those who fished in "oiled fisheries" that were damaged directly, and "unoiled fisheries" like Bristol Bay, where the damage was less direct....