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J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

reuters.com

41–50 of 239 posts

Re: J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

#41

Is there an article actually linked? All I see is the footer for more from routers...

It’s strange, it’s crashing Safari on iOS: Mirror here: https://archive.ph/vfOkX

How on earth is this page killing all 3 mobile rendering engines?! I literally can't view the page on my phone.

Re: J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

#42
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anybody demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the vended product was the cause of ovarian cancer in the plaintiffs.

Since none of this is about criminal proceedings in the US, “beyond a reasonable doubt” is a meaningless (quite literally; what do you mean?) standard.

I know what the various standards are for cases but that's not the point. In this case, "preponderance of evidence".

Let's turn what you said around.

In a civil case, a jury can find a defendent guilty of something, but with inadequate evidence. This can lead to enormous fines, and potentially even make a large company go bankrupt. One imagines that if you're going to find somebody guilty, they actually have to be guilty. How does that look? Scientific studies. And scientific studies don't exist that show that people who consumed J*J talc got cancer at elevated rates with a significance level that meets any judicial standard.

So basically, what you are saying (which is true, and is exactly what bothers me) is that court cases can find a defendent guilty using a lack of scientific evidence, as long as the jury believes what was shown to them is a preponderance. That could just be erin brockovich walking around in court saying hexavalent chromium causes cancer (again, not enough data to conclude this).

here's the CA case. https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A159609.PDF """ While none of this is disputed, whether asbestos was present in JBP during the six-decade exposure period is a matter of sharp dispute.

As further explained below, the trial court ruled that Dr. Compton’s and Dr. Fitzgerald’s declarations, to the extent they infer the presence of asbestos in milled, finished talcum powder from nothing more than positive tests for asbestos in raw talc ore used to manufacture it, are legally insufficient to create a triable issue of fact under applicable principles of causation

Re: J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

#43

So either 1) the lawyers ripped off J&J by spending time on this or 2) J&J management was so angry and irrational that they demanded the lawyers waste their time on this. Every lawyer worth their salt in America knows that you can’t get an injunction to prevent someone from publishing something. That’s a prior restraint and is about as close as you can get to something absolutely forbidden under American law.

"you can’t get an injunction to prevent someone from publishing something." You can't, in theory. In practice this sort of thing happens all the time. I had a judge issue a clearly unconstitutional order limiting my speech (there was no action on my part leading up to this, it was a broad order applying to more than just me). My lawyer's take was that while it was clearly not allowed, it wasn't particularly important…

If you feel comfortable elaborating, can you explain broadly the purpose for the judge's order? I have heard stories of judges doing things like that during the time period of a divorce or custody battle.

Re: J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

#44

Pharma companies get away with way too much. No other industry could you sell products that only slightly work as advertised for some people, some of the time. But charge everyone same, with no refunds when the product doesn't work. And you can't even sue if it causes you harm. The new development to use the power of the courts and government to mandate their use should give you pause. The absolute risk reduction (AR…

> No other industry could you sell products that only slightly work as advertised for some people

Gambling? Options trading? Do you get refunds from your weed dealer when it doesn't hit quite right?

> And you can't even sue if it causes you harm.

You can, it's just that you get damages paid by the Federal government, not the manufacturer. You also can't sue if the military fails to defend a U.S. city from attack, for what it's worth.

Re: J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

#45
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you can’t get an injunction to prevent someone from publishing something." You can't, in theory. In practice this sort of thing happens all the time. I had a judge issue a clearly unconstitutional order limiting my speech (there was no action on my part leading up to this, it was a broad order applying to more than just me). My lawyer's take was that while it was clearly not allowed, it wasn't particularly important…

That makes we wonder how many essentially invisible to the public cases this kind of restraint we have in the system. It seem like all it takes is a plausible legal theory that could be dragged out combined with enough financial clout to make the defendant give.

This same judge said something along the lines of "there are no limits on my ability to issue orders until an appeals court overturns them."

He was keenly aware that the issue wasn't significant enough to appeal and that his power was essentially unchecked.

Lawyers are very aware of this dynamic.

Re: J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the lawyers ripped off J&J by spending time on this I wouldn't be surprised. My mother worked for the VP a company that was involved in a lawsuit that went on for decades. It was commonly known in the company that the lawsuit was being deliberately dragged out for the benefit of the opposition's lawyers, and that the case was even handed down as a kind of sick inheritance from father-to-son as people retired. I've on…

"I'm sure there are good lawyers out there, but they seem as rare as hen's teeth and well-intentioned social media companies. " It seems the incentive for lawers as a group is, make everything more complicated for everyone else, so everyone else is more dependant on lawers to do anything at all.

Although I know I'm wrong 99% of the time I sometimes get that feeling about my fellow programmers when I look at code...

Re: J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

#47
This sounds like a similar strategy taken straight out of the Hollywood Accounting [1] playbook:

“On Friday, Reuters reported that J&J secretly launched ‘Project Plato’ last year to shift liability from about 38,000 pending Baby Powder talc lawsuits to a newly created subsidiary, which was then to be put into bankruptcy. By doing so, J&J could limit its financial exposure to the lawsuits.”

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

Re: J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

#48

So either 1) the lawyers ripped off J&J by spending time on this or 2) J&J management was so angry and irrational that they demanded the lawyers waste their time on this. Every lawyer worth their salt in America knows that you can’t get an injunction to prevent someone from publishing something. That’s a prior restraint and is about as close as you can get to something absolutely forbidden under American law.

> Every lawyer worth their salt in America knows that you can’t get an injunction to prevent someone from publishing something.

You can if you are the government: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_order#United_States

Re: J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

#49
post #39

So either 1) the lawyers ripped off J&J by spending time on this or 2) J&J management was so angry and irrational that they demanded the lawyers waste their time on this. Every lawyer worth their salt in America knows that you can’t get an injunction to prevent someone from publishing something. That’s a prior restraint and is about as close as you can get to something absolutely forbidden under American law.

Reuters is a UK company and freedom of press is quite limited there. But a US federal judge of course would be the wrong party to turn to for leveraging this.

> freedom of press is quite limited there

Could you please be more specific? Because I've lived here for a long time and I'd call this statement utter BS.

Re: J&J tried to get federal judge to block publication of Reuters story

#50
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anybody demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the vended product was the cause of ovarian cancer in the plaintiffs.

It’s a civil suit. If Johnson and Johnson was so confident that there was no harm caused by their products, why go through all this trouble?

because civil suits that find them guilty could make them go out of business even if they did nothing wrong.
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