Hacker News Reader

Comment by legitster | Hacker News Reader

This is a more complex case than I thought, and the dissent argument is actually very powerful and convincing:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-124_8nk0.pdf

Basically, the original judge did a good job - the settlement plan was reasonable and widely popular. And the Sackler family being released from liability by putting billions of personal dollars into the payment fund meant more victims would get more money immediately.

With this ruling, the Sacklers are personally legally liable again - which may make you or I more happy, but this means that victims have to pursue a much harder and more expensive set of lawsuits to get money from the Sackler family. It also means the victims of the deal don't get a voice in the proceedings, and it may also make future payouts and bankruptcies harder if there is no reason to cooperate with the state.

View on HN

I disagree. The dissent focused way too much on emotional appeals. It shouldn’t matter if the remedy was popular amongst the primary parties if the law doesn’t allow for such a remedy, “it was popular” is not a solid legal footing.

If we want to make sure that the victims of people like the Sacklers can get some justice then let’s actually write some laws for that purpose. Let’s remove the loopholes that let them make a ton of money at the expense of a nation, and them take it all offshore. Let’s add transparency to corporate structuring. Let’s fully pierce the corporate veil for egregious situations such as this.

What we shouldn’t do is allow the powerful yet another tool to escape consequences. Whether or not this particular deal was a net-positive for victims is besides the point. It gives too much power to bankruptcy judges and is a ripe avenue for corruption. Go to a “friendly” judge and have them absolve you of any personal liability, then send them a nice gift basket full of Benjamins, now fully legally (Thanks Supreme Court!).

> If we want to make sure that the victims of people like the Sacklers can get some justice

This isn't just about the Sacklers either, this could potentially impact a lot of other important cases in the future once the law is more well defined.

> victims have to pursue a much harder and more expensive set of lawsuits to get money from the Sackler family

They also have to litigate away a 2004 indemnification agreement extended by Purdue to the Sacklers in 2004, which could result in litigation and liability draining the pot before pay-outs can begin.

Definitely more complicated than I first appreciated.

If I had lost a family member to drug abuse I would want justice (ie. jail time) not money.

> I would want justice (ie. jail time) not money

Retribution not restitution [1]. “Justice” in this context is ambiguous.

[1] https://open.lib.umn.edu/criminallaw/chapter/1-5-the-purpose...

What's the point of "restitution" if it came from the victims anyways? The Sacklers would have kept all of their ill-gotten gains under this settlement. The amount they'd be paying is practically just the interest from their earnings.

> What's the point of "restitution" if it came from the victims anyways?

The difference between having money and not.

> amount they'd be paying is practically just the interest from their earnings

Not disputing, the majority almost admits as much, but source?

Restoring what was taken from the victims is literally the definition of restitution.

Except if all you have is restitution, there's no punishment.

"Hey, I stole this money from you but since I gave it back - after a court ordered me to - we're all square, right?"

Exactly. If they're just returning the money (sans interest), where's the punishment?

If you steal $100 from a bank, you spend more time in jail than these scumbags ever will.

I have a hard time with the concept of retribution alone, but I think if it is phrased in terms of modeling societal standards and demonstrating to others that this behavior is unacceptable, it is still valuable to society. I guess you can mark that under "deterrence", but it's less about sending a signal to future would-be criminals, and more about communicating and demonstrating societal standards to the entire society at large.

justice from whom? Just because they got a prescription doesn't mean they lost complete body autonomy. The lack of personal responsibility regarding drugs around here is insane.

The whole basis of this suit is that a Purdue subsidiary went out of their way to market these pills as non-addicting. "Personal responsibility" in this case clearly lies on those actors, not the addicts.

I'm not sure about the justice aspect, but I wouldn't underestimate how powerfully addicting some of these drugs can be to the point where it can override your "personal responsibility". Same thing with any substance like alcohol or cigarettes, gambling, over-eating, etc. It's very easy to slip into abuse and an addictive response and susceptibility isn't universal.

Opioids are highly addictive. If you're vulnerable and your doctor eagerly prescribes them because it feeds their wallet, you can easily loose control.

Don't blame the victims.

> Don't blame the victims.

Expecting some personal agency is now victim blaming? Detoxing from opioids is not fatal. It sucks. But it's doable. You don't need to take your entire prescription. Take it while you're in pain.

If you were prescribed heroin and proceeded to take it, you would end up addicted and unable to quit. Full stop. It is exceedingly rare to overcome opiates, you underestimate them greatly.

why would it be harder? wouldn't it just be the next family that tries to get away with crap like this will be scolded sooner?

it seeem like if you want people stop doing bad things you can't let them get away with bad things. here, the family was trying to get away with billions. The bankruptcy court said, "yay, ok". The Supreme Court said "no, not ok"

I don't understand the dissent. unless the dissent is friends of the family trying to spin.

If you want money from the Purdue bankruptcy entity: you just file a claim while they still have money.

If you want money from the Sackler family: you need to lawyer up, prove a bunch of personal liability claims (which are very, very hard cases to win), and wait a long time. And hope they still have money.

While it may feel nice to eventually, maybe, be able to throw the Sackler family in jail, it basically just blows up the ability to do mass tort arbitration.

From the dissent, which even includes Sotomayor and Kagan:

"As a result of the Court’s decision, each victim and creditor receives the essential equivalent of a lottery ticket for a possible future recovery for (at most) a few of them. And as the Bankruptcy Court explained, without the non-debtor releases, there is no good reason to believe that any of the victims or state or local governments will ever recover anything."

> If you want money from the Purdue bankruptcy entity: you just file a claim while they still have money

And as the dissent notes, this class includes the Sacklers per their 2004 indemnification agreement. So we first need to nullify that to avoid draining.

How would you propose the agreement be nullified? Was it fraudulent, or performed without shareholder approval?

It’s harder because it requires piercing the veil of protection of an LLC, a legal construct that is explicitly designed to limit liabilities. There are simply more legal hurdles to this.

Though I do agree with the conclusion that the bankruptcy court should not be able to grant immunity to the Sackler family. It feels deeply, deeply immoral

> harder because it requires piercing the veil of protection of an LLC

Source?

It’s harder because they’re indemnified by Purdue, and their individual liability is far from established. (The opinion and dissent both refer to a monolithic “Sacklers,” but they’re individuals and trusts and whatever.)

I think the argument is against the Sacklers personally and their actions, not based on their ownership stake of the LLC. So this wouldn’t involve piercing the veil.

Only if suitors were going against Sackler assets to pay off Purdue corporate stuff.

An important but frequently overlooked aspect of the law is that by the time the courts are involve it is often too late for there to truly be justice. Things have often happened that cannot be undone. Often parties that are at fault do not have the resources to pay their share of damages.

No matter what the court does in those situations someone is getting screwed.

> no reason to cooperate with the state

The idea of the rule of law + the state's monopoly on violence is that you WILL cooperate with the state if the law says you should. It may even be worth some losses to keep that up.

> you WILL cooperate with the state if the law says you should

As the dissent notes, we don’t yet know what the law says about the Sacklers’ liability.

It's really not that complex. The question is NOT whether the plan was a good idea or reasonable. The question was whether the Bankruptcy Code authorized the bankruptcy judge to approve the plan. It doesn't. It's really not more complex than that.

Courts cannot legislate from the bench. Why not? Because the Constitution says so; i.e., Congress gets to say what the statutes say, while the Judiciary gets to say what the Constitutions says. That's the balance of power under the Constitution.

To me...the waaaaaaay bigger and more intriguing thing is: the story underlying this split 5-4 decision.

I mean this spit the "right" justices and the "left" justices. J Jackson came out of nowhere and sided with four "right" justices. Like, what?

Also, I can't for the life of me understand how J Sotomayor and J Kagan could ever come to the conclusion that this sweetheart deal for rich billionaires, who made their money killing $247k humans, was a good idea and totally fine. Again, what? But no the efficacy of the deal doesn't legally matter and is irrelevant.

Nevertheless, we don't know that the victims will be harmed by this decision. However, we DO KNOW that the rich billionaires would have benefited if this decision went the other way.

Remember that.

There's gotta be a Pulitzer worthy story behind this split.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com