This decision is a win both for that cause, and also forestalling precedent that would allow future wrongdoing corporations from 'shielding the veil' so to speak through bankruptcy. A win-win indeed.
>"As a result, opioid victims are now deprived of the substantial monetary recovery that they long fought for and finally secured after years of litigation...virtually all of the opioid victims and creditors in this case fervently support approval of Purdue’s bankruptcy reorganization plan."
Time will tell if this ruling gives enough preventative pressure to future cases to make it worth the additional pain to the present claimants.
The problem is that this sets an ugly precedent. The bankruptcy settlement is basically "I can make a deal with A that takes away your ability to sue B, even though I wasn't suing B and you are". It makes no sense. The dissenting opinion is the epitome of "fuck you, I got mine."
Suppose we discover next year that one of the RNA covid vaccines causes cancer with 100% probability. The vaccine maker, on the hook for trillions of dollars of damages with no possible way to pay, declares bankruptcy (victims get approximately nothing). Elon Musk steps in and offers to contribute 20 billion dollars to help compensate the victims who would otherwise get nothing. All he asks is that the bankruptcy court dismiss all claims related to his pay package, stock manipulation and libel on twitter. The victims overwhelmingly approve the settlement and the judge oks it. After all, bankruptcy judges have wide discretion and $20 billion is better than $0.
Is that ok?
In my analogy, Elon Musk (and most of the people suing him) are not related to the vaccine maker (but there could be overlap among some of the plaintiffs and Musk could own some shares of the vaccine maker). But, technically, the same is true with Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family and plaintiffs. Yes, the Sacklers are more closely related to Purdue than Musk and the hypothetical vaccine company, but that's just a matter of degree.
In the Purdue bankruptcy, the victims of Purdue voted (and the court agreed) to take the Sackler's money and in exchange prevent anyone at all in the United States from suing the Sacklers about anything at all related to opioids. Even people who are not eligible to be members of the Purdue bankruptcy settlement cannot sue the Sacklers!
If the Sackler settlement was allowed to stand, it effectively allows billionaires to buy their way out of liability for unrelated things if they donate some money to sympathetic victims. All they would need to do is create some degree of nexus between themselves and the entity declaring bankruptcy, sufficient for a bankruptcy judge to ok the settlement.
As I understand it, the court didn't so much agree as practically force them to accept the deal.
The whole thing was largely engineered by the Sacklers managing to get the case heard by probably the most Sackler-friendly judge in the country.