Hacker News Reader

Maybe it's like 1000-year prison terms. It does not make practical sense, but if that is how much harm the company has caused, that is how much the lawsuit would be for.

View on HN

Understand, it just adds a sense of unrealism to that case for me.

Everything else looks solid, then after seeing that number, it changes how I see the whole thing.

Maybe they did an unreal amount of harm. That could just be where the math adds up. If they're responsible for 100,000 overdose deaths, with each life valued at an average of $20 million, that adds up to ~$2T.

Especially when you consider those that didn't overdose but were still crippled, which is certainly at least an integer multiple of the number of deaths.

That is you problem then. They did cause that much damage to the US economy via addictions, deaths, hospital charges, lost taxes, state raising kids cause mommy and daddy are addicts etc etc..

The other side can and will challenge the damages via experts. Obviously they will not see $2 Trillion, but you ask for at least to be made whole.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com