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Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

reuters.com

171–180 of 336 posts

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#171

Apropos of anything else, J&J's handling of this has been despicable. Creating an entity specifically to pick up all of the related liabilities, picking up those liabilities and then (exact count may be wrong, but it's very close) literally filing for bankruptcy within the space of three days. The Texas two-step, as it's called. > In 2021, the company spun off its liabilities into a new entity called LTL Management u…

I’ll assume “LTL” stands for “Limiting Talc Liabilities for Management”

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a juror on a very small case. A previous trial assigned guilt. Our trial was to determine damages. It was eye opening for me. We were not allowed to know things like medical bills and costs the victim incurred. We were forced to choose some number without having an basis for establishing the magnitude. I still don’t know if we were too high or too low.

If you weren't allowed to see medical bills and such, then you were probably tasked with determining other kinds of damages (e.g. emotional distress) that are totally unrelated to those.

It seems to me that medical bills would be a major contributor to distress.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather see J&J go out of business entirely.

I get the sentiment, but if I stop and think about it, I don't understand the math. I'm not intending to criticize since I struggle with this myself. Try on this hypothetical. Imagine that ten people in a giant company called ACME made some decisions that led to 50,000 people getting hurt. ACME also employs 100,000 hard working people, representing perhaps 0.3-0.4 million family members dependent upon that income. Im…

Reads like a "too big to fail" argument.

It works for the banking industry I guess so why not here too.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#174
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read the Matt Levine piece linked below ( https://archive.is/KcL2P ) I think that J&J did the right thing by attempting to use bankruptcy to organize payments. It was not avoiding liability at all. The court that dismissed the claim in general agreed with J&J's process, but said it was too early. Some key quote from Levine: > Juries in the US don’t like it when companies make products that kill people, and the…

> The court that dismissed the claim in general agreed with J&J's process, but said it was too early. And yet as soon as it was dismissed, within hours J&J had refiled with different numbers. The court also said that trying to tie this new entity to North Carolina was also trying to maximize a "strained and very limited" connection to the state, and the administrator questioned why this entity had no relationship to…

Care to share some references? I’m not well informed on this subject, and the disagreement here makes me think it’s wise to just go read up on the details.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#175

Apropos of anything else, J&J's handling of this has been despicable. Creating an entity specifically to pick up all of the related liabilities, picking up those liabilities and then (exact count may be wrong, but it's very close) literally filing for bankruptcy within the space of three days. The Texas two-step, as it's called. > In 2021, the company spun off its liabilities into a new entity called LTL Management u…

Well the fact that that is possible is just a reflection of most of the things wrong with the world.

The rich get richer.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#177

Apropos of anything else, J&J's handling of this has been despicable. Creating an entity specifically to pick up all of the related liabilities, picking up those liabilities and then (exact count may be wrong, but it's very close) literally filing for bankruptcy within the space of three days. The Texas two-step, as it's called. > In 2021, the company spun off its liabilities into a new entity called LTL Management u…

This is the top-voted comment but as many of the other replies have pointed out, it's totally wrong outrage-bait. J&J, the parent company, is still ultimately liable for the full amount. The bankruptcy process just allows the courts to manage all of the claims together under the authority of one judge, instead of having different courts in every state issue incompatible damages awards in a race to judgment.

and then it may be easier to convince one judge than a dozen. Isn't it ?

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#178
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having read the Matt Levine piece linked below ( https://archive.is/KcL2P ) I think that J&J did the right thing by attempting to use bankruptcy to organize payments. It was not avoiding liability at all. The court that dismissed the claim in general agreed with J&J's process, but said it was too early. Some key quote from Levine: > Juries in the US don’t like it when companies make products that kill people, and the…

> This can lead to unfair results, not for you — who cares about you — but for your victims: If a $1 billion company has killed 100 people, the first 10 who sue might get $100 million each of damages, leaving nothing for the remaining 90. There is a valid point there, but one could argue it sets up unfair precedent for companies to act in bad faith if they can get off easy.

This is assuming the first 10 victims are going to act in a selfish way. That's basically assuming victims behave like companies (which must be selfish because their management has to protect them).

That's despicable.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather see J&J go out of business entirely.

Okay. I think I don't care about J&J as long as victims are fairly compensated. For this one, and for any future victims that are affected by this product or any other product created by J&J.

I'd rather there were no future victims.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, it's a game of three-card monte. Glad Matt is confident he can play and win, always the optimist.

Are you proud of your ignorance? Seems like you're not interested in understanding, just in continuing to feel outraged.

Would you have preferred I refer to a shell game rather than "three card monte." I do confess some ignorance of street hustle lingo. Or, maybe the street people have already switched to simply calling it the "bad bank game?"
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