Does anyone find it strange that this is described as a loss for the victims?
Now that legal protections are off the table, it is very unlikely that any new settlement will be as generous, and in fact quite unlikely that any settlement will be achieved at all.
The $6bn ruling was significant and not an amazing outcome for either side (so, a compromise).
Additionally most of the Sacklers are well into old age, so they'll probably die before losing $6bn.
I find this framing extremely bizarre. A $6bn ruling means the family profits $5 BILLION. In no universe is that not an amazing outcome for them.
They are now likely to pay much less by settling smaller individual cases, which will take significantly longer and cost claimants significantly more to pursue.
When they die (which will be soon, most of them are 75+) it'll become even more difficult to get anything.
The deal that was overruled was certainly not justice, but reality will likely be worse. There's no outcome that will render them not billionaires within their lifetimes.
So then why did they choose to settle? That makes no sense. The only reason a defendant settles is to minimize potential losses.
the settlement was also in the interest of the government, which may now end up with tens of thousands of separate suits to manage and $6bn less to help manage the crisis unfolding in the meantime
don't get me wrong, the sacklers could end up worse off... but it's a big if and will take much much longer
???
If a company voluntarily enters into a settlement, it's because they think they're saving money somewhere else.
In this case the Sacklers are granted immunity to all future lawsuits.
It's a gain of billions of dollars that everyone agrees they should not have had in the first place. That's really much more significant.
It's pretty telling that literally nobody says that the Sackler family should actually have this money, just varying degrees of it being hard to claw back from them.
If someone walks into my house, stabs me with a knife, and steals the money on my dresser, keeping half of the money they took from me is the exact opposite of a loss for them.
The deal was pragmatic in the absence of a clear path for actual consequences.
It would be easier to rally an angry mob at this point.
The primary goal for the suit is to punish the wrongdoing and disincentivize similar future behavior by others. Higher costs and uncertainty does that.
As the dissent notes, this decision means the victims won’t get money now. When is an open question, as well as whether it will be similar, more or less after litigation costs, and to whom it will be paid.
What is certain is the Sacklers will be hurt more. (Unless a couple bizarre legal maneuvres pay off, e.g. the Sacklers extinguishing liability by way of a 2004 indemnification agreement.) So in a sense, this is deterrence and retribution winning over restitution [1].
[1] https://open.lib.umn.edu/criminallaw/chapter/1-5-the-purpose...
Maybe? They get all of the billions back and now have time and a reason to start building a defense.
They never gave up any cash to my knowledge. The plan was a promise.
We can conclude the Sacklers are worse off right now given they (and the creditors) accepted the deal. They may be materially better off in the future. But the rest of their lives will be about this.
The Supreme court case was specifically about the $6 billion dollars the Sacklers committed to the bankruptcy fund. And this ruling says they are not allowed to contribute to it.
Committed, not contributed.
Its absolutely a loss for the victims.
Not just them, but they are among those losing.
I can see it going both ways, yes: this means that 6 billion dollars are not immediately available for compensation.
On the other hand, certain states (Washington was one, if I recall) argued that 6 billion dollars was such a pitifully small amount (relative to the damage done) that they declined to accept compensation in hopes that future lawsuits would yield more.
I view this decision as rejecting the immediate compensation, but opening up possibility for greater compensation in the future (with obvious risks and delays).
As the dissent notes, “all 50 state Attorneys General have signed on to this plan.” The holdouts were “a small group of Canadian creditors and one lone individual.”
I always thought of the Sackler carve-out as a scam. But the dissent gives me pause. This ruling trades restitution for retribution. In all likelihood, many classes of victims—such as small victims, small states and local governments—won’t see a penny, at least for years.
IMO the money is a pittance, sounds like a lot but it's just a fraction of what the federal government spends on any given day. We can afford to carve out the financial resources to help victims. The retribution is totally worth it, because it needs to be understood that behavior like this will get punished. It should be painful, not just the cost of doing business.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/nyregion/jon-stewart-9-11...
It seems the case that the interests of the victims/plaintiffs (e.g. compensation) may be different than the public at large (e.g. punishment).
If so, perhaps the interests of the public should be pursued by a different avenue than the civil case of the victims, which requires superseding the agency of the victims.
When you say 'the victims' are you implying they all agreed to this? So they are all okay with giving up their individual right to sue for damages? You make several points which imply that this is some kind of consensus position that everyone is okay with. That's the root of the problem, though -- this settlement in no way addresses the damage to all the victims.
Perhaps renegotiate the agreement so that it only immunizes Purdue/Sacklers from further civil action from
In any case, when I say pittance, I was clearly talking about relative to the financial resources of the US. This is a national problem, we can afford to solve it at a societal level without being forced into accepting an unjust settlement.
Real progress would involve systemic changes to the treatment and causes of drug addiction, as well as medical treatment philosophy.
To hang the opioid epidemic on perdue is a gross oversimplification, essentially a scapegoating of a multifactorial problem. Perdue sold the same pills in Europe, but the US has an overdose rate 2,000% higher.
Like I said above, I think it would be extremely shallow thinking to claim that there is a single reason.
If I were to pick a leading difference, I would say that the US has embraced trained consumerism to a greater degree than most European countries. As such, the idea that a simple pill/product will make a problem go away has more traction, both with prescribers, patients, and abusers.
You see this difference manifest in many cultural and social forms, where people in the US are especially prone to "quick fix" marketing and products that offer escape and excitement through consumption.
This is one thing that leads into higher rates of substance abuse in the US than Europe. For example, the US has a higher rate of alcohol use disorder than most European countries, despite most of the countries having more permissive laws around alcohol and more consumption of it on average.
The only sane comment here. It's laughably ridiculous to call for retribution against a single family as if they were personally responsible for every overdose the country has seen.
Thanks for the correction! I must have read about Washington States objection a while ago, and been unaware of a change in their position (since I first read about it)
(This ruling also brings a certainty of delay for compensation, since negotiations for a settlement have to start anew, and with lower chances of success.)
Pay attention to the ads appearing on NBC, I guess... (cf. Manufacturing Consent)