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Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

First off, no it doesn't. Their profit for 2022 is $18 billion. This is less than half of one year of profit even, again spread out over 25 years. During which inflation + revenue growth will further dilute it. They even have $23 billion cash on hand. [1] I'd also add income is a regularly gamed metric for tax avoidance purposes.

But really the whole point here is that without painful penalties, there is no deterrence whatsoever. Seeing 'megacorp knowingly sold asbestos tainted product for decades' is not even going to elicit a 'omg I can't believe it' from anybody not born yesterday. Nor will the fact that they faced a civil penalty that was but the mildest of prods on the wrist, and 0 criminal penalties. We seemingly have a government completely incapable of holding large corporations accountable for their actions. And that is seriously not normal, nor acceptable.

[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/JNJ/johnson-johnso...

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But j&j is a conglomerate business, so using their entire business profit is not right to check what percentage loss the fine is.

If you only consider the profit from the talc business, how much is the fine compared to profit?

You realize J&J is a massive company with a huge range of products?

Imagine if Google was fined 50% of a year’s revenue because of Google Voice.

That’s a massive penalty by any measure.

Imagine if google was knowingly killing people with google voice for decades

I would imagine Google as a corporation would be more careful about giving people cancer. “We are too big for accountability” has been a bad idea every time it has been used in America.

More importantly, Google's competitors would also be more careful about it too.

Kill a giant after it steps on people and other giants will learn to tiptoe.

The only way to kill a giant is to have an even bigger giant. What then, if the biggest giant is now the one killing people?

Ideally a combination of intracompetitive federal agencies that form a legal Voltron when required.

Gulliver's Travels says otherwise.

It's an analogy, trying to take it too far will get silly.

If I gave 40,000 people cancer as an individual and killed several thousands of people as a result, I wouldn't lose 3 years of disposal income. I would lose all of it, forever, as I sit and rot in prison for the rest of my life.

This is the sort of punishment we need for corporations.

40,000 people got cancer from talc? Please link the research paper that shows that.

Everybody thinks personal injury lawyers are slimy but then quotes their “data” like it was proven fact.

What do you think the lawsuit was about? You think J&J is being forced to pay the measly 8.9 billion just because they want this to go away? 40,000 people got cancer that we know of. People should be in jail.

Where is this figure given? I can't see it (may have skipped over it accidentally)

It is the number of members in the class.

Which would just be people that got a relevant cancer that also used the product - that signed up to be part of the class.

People get cancer all the time. It’s very, very hard to prove a causal relationship.

Assumably this is why there’s a trial. J&J is willing to pay $9B to avoid one; this leads me to believe that they think they have a significant risk of having cancer be linked to their product.

Which people?

Let's consider, for a moment, that they paid nine billion (with a B) as a settlement because they thought that it would be cheaper than the outcome of fully litigating it. Which is to say, $9B was the cheaper option.

Regardless of the numbers, for that to be true, you've got to be pretty convinced you've fucked up really hard.

No, you just have to be convinced that there's a pretty good chance that a jury can be convinced that you need to pay for what you did.

Clearly J&J was convinced

40,000 people claimed it did and followed through with legal action. Sure, maybe only a percentage of them actually got it from talc. But globally, what percent of people who did get cancer from talc actually sue? Also likely a low percentage.

Maybe none?

Lawyers don't create the data.

No, but they certainly take weak data and argue why it's strong.

And they make a ton of money doing it.

And? That has nothing to do with what I'm replying to. Your just making another complaint.

They should pierce the corporate veil and go after any individuals who had personal involvement in the matter while being fully aware of what the consequences of their actions were. That way, the livelihood of other employees who have no say in the matter is not affected, and only those who directly participated are held accountable.

I agree with this and that included people who have retired. Find the people that knew and make them pay with jail time and a financial punishment

Which specific criminal law do you think they have violated? Please provide a citation to applicable state or federal criminal code. What they did was shitty, but I'm skeptical whether it would be possible for prosecutors to win a criminal conviction.

If you can give 40,000 people cancer and not break a law, maybe it's the law that needs to change.

Sounds good. Have you contacted your elected officials with a proposal for such a law?

Negligent homicide,?

Maybe make a new law

The way that negligent homicide is defined it would be impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a particular person's fatal cancer was directly caused by talc. A strong probability isn't sufficient for a criminal conviction.

Some new law would likely be needed. How could such a law be written in a manner that satisfies the vagueness doctrine?

Laws don't need to be perfect and many are vague for whatever reason but that's why there's trials.

This is a serious problem if you want to wait until a perfect law is written it won't be solved.

Also, can you provide a some other solution?

You're really missing the point. Criminal laws must satisfy the vagueness doctrine or else all convictions will be thrown out on appeal. There are literally centuries of case law in this. So your comment makes no sense and displays a lack of understanding about the basics of the criminal justice system.

I did miss the point. I thought "vagueness doctrine" was just a term invented here because it kinda sounds like it. You know, a catch all to deter people who want to make rules or regulations.

Considering laws exist for many types of actions it should be possible to make one in which knowingly producing and distributing any product for any price that you know to cause harm, and that harm is not made of aware of to the public in an obvious way, should be held liable for any damages that occur from the use of that product as indicated by the instructions

This includes people that approve of the actions and/or responsible for the subordinates involved in the production/approval of said products, in the company/subsidiary/any related entity, as long as that person was provided with the information or access to information that would allow them to ascertain the risk with a reasonable amount of accuracy. However, it shan't be required to show that person actually consumed or understood that information if it was expected that they do so.

The punishment must be but can not be limited to monetary fines which can not be purged through bankruptcy. <something about jail here>

etc etc.

That's not how the system works. It would be very difficult to convict you as an individual of a felony that would send you to prison. The burden of proof in criminal cases is much higher.

Even if you were found liable in civil court you wouldn't lose all of your income forever. You would be able to declare personal bankruptcy and clear the debt.

>>Even if you were found liable in civil court you wouldn't lose all of your income forever. You would be able to declare personal bankruptcy and clear the debt.

I guess it depends.

From the net:

"Instances in which a court ordered judgment won’t be overridden by bankruptcy include debts related to:

Student loans

Any debt owed to the government, including taxes and fines

Court ordered awards related to criminal proceedings"

None of that is relevant. This case is not a criminal proceeding. Civil court judgments can generally be cleared in bankruptcy.

If Google Voice killed people then yeah, that'd be fair.

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