NYC sues Exxon $300m for polluting Queens.

Kill one person and you're a murderer. Kill tens of thousands of people and you're a successful corporation.

The city has taken one of the world’s largest oil companies to court and is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for contaminating the drinking water under southeast Queens.

Opening arguments began last week in Manhattan federal court for the city’s lawsuit against ExxonMobil, accusing the oil giant of negligence and nuisance for using the chemical methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, in its fuel products during the 1980s and ’90s. The chemical served as an unleaded gasoline additive to boost the octane number and, if found in water supplies, has been found to cause cancer and other diseases when it comes in contact with human skin, according to the lawsuit.

Large traces of the additive were found in the groundwater that was located under Jamaica and prevented the city from using it to provide water to New Yorkers, according to the suit.

“From at least the early 1980s, defendants and other gasoline refiners collectively knew ... about the dangers and risks that the products posed to groundwater and soil, but did not at any time warn the public, local gasoline stations or any government entity,” the city said in the suit.

The city is seeking more than $300 million in damages from ExxonMobil in the jury trial. Peter John Sacripanti, the attorney representing the oil company, could not be reached for comment.

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