Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:16 PM UTC

respondo2134 wrote: post #253

hkt wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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I don't think you really understand what "Limited liability" means, nor who these supposed capitalists are. All those public pension plans & unionized retirement funds probably appreciate that they're not on the hook for unlimited liability from J&J.

So? You have said nothing to refute his point. Pention funds are capital.

You don't need to optimise returns on capital at the cost of a generation that in currently young and working. Pention system can be managed differently if needed too.

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

#262

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:19 PM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #192

eropple wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Well they could do things to harm themselves [because we treat non-profit employees like they implicitly have a wealthy spouse or should live in a shoebox]" is also not helping the argument very much. One does not need to be a Stylite to have an opinion on society; comparing the actions of individuals, without significant power or influence, with corporate-fiction persons that come equipped with lobbying arms and su…

It’s called having the courage of your convictions. Plenty of people live off of non profit salaries without having a wealthy spouse or even do public sector work.

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

#263

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:24 PM UTC

dev_tty01 wrote: post #161

onlypositive wrote: post #106

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…

> does the ethical math really work for ACME to be completely destroyed?

The same ethical math tells us we should never imprison parents of young children for smaller crimes, like stealing, because it will harm wellfare of the child. And yet we do it anyway.

> Destroying ACME entirely

By carpet bombing? Sure.

But we do not blow up the factories and we don't neurolise employees. The factories will be bought by a competitor, the employees will work for a competitor or start their own business. Nothing physical is "Destroyed" in the real world

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

#264

Post by ankit219 » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:25 PM UTC

shkkmo wrote: post #229

ankit219 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They weren't capping the total payouts in damages. The bankruptcy filing itself said that parent company would cover the cost to ensure everyone gets the money. Bankruptcy was a process to ensure every victim gets equal amount. The term for this process is misleading, and the mental image is very much of a company which is getting out of paying their victims. In this case, filing for bankruptcy created fairness among…

>In this case, filing for bankruptcy created fairness among victims, they did not have to be first or fifth to get the right damages, every victim was treated equal. It creates fairness among victims by removing their rights to seek higher damages via their own court cases. This "fairness" is only needed if the total amount of judgements exceeds what J&J can pay. In which case it is J&J which should be declaring bank…

> It creates fairness among victims by removing their rights to seek higher damages via their own court cases

How is it fair if the first victim gets 10M in damages, but the 100,000th victim does not, given each lawsuit proceeds differently? It's obviously not a race, and getting less/more damages based on the order you filed a lawsuit is surely not the best way. (Damages via settlement or decided by jury). Even in the best case scenario where every victim gets a payout, they should get equal payout for similar damages.

Also, the judge agreed with J&J's idea, but found the filing to be premature. That is even before they fought any lawsuit. Early is encouraged, premature is not. There is a distinction

> We recognize the Code contemplates “the need for early access to bankruptcy relief to allow a debtor to rehabilitate its business before it is faced with a hopeless situation.” A “financially troubled” debtor facing mass tort liability, for example, may require bankruptcy to “enable a continuation of [its] business and to maintain access to the capital markets” even before it is insolvent.

> Still, encouragement of early filing “does not open the door to premature filing.” This may be a fine line in some cases, but our bankruptcy system puts courts, vested with equitable powers, in the best position to draw it.

The problematic part would have been had the money been capped. It's not, evidently.

Then again, if you want to dissolve a company for one product, tell me what happens if tomorrow another product of theirs has some flaw, and now the victims cannot get anything for their damages?

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

#265

Post by rcxdude » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

somenits wrote: post #158

FireBeyond wrote: post #5

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.

The main issue with the action seems to be stalling for time in the courts while the parent company can continue to operate without much consequences (as far as I can tell all the companies listed in the texas-two-step wiki page are still operating and have not paid out).

Because the bankrupcy basically pauses all litigation (including against the parent company) it means even more delays on an already extremely lengthy process, but the restrictions of bankrupcy only apply to the spin-out, not the parent. So while in theory they may pay out eventually, the process can easily take more time and money than many of the claimants have (literally in the case of those who have cancer).

In general the immense amount of time most court systems take to actually resolve disputes like this is a big contributer to the lack of faith most people have in them, and the capacity to stall for time available to both parties but especially defendents is a big part of that problem.

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

#266

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:34 PM UTC

andsoitis wrote: post #187

KennyBlanken wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not running out of money to pay people fairly"? $65BN is almost exactly equal to one year's gross profits for the company, on top of which J&J has $24BN in cash and a market valuation of over $400BN. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/JNJ/key-statistics/ That $65BN is likely decades worth of claims, not one lump sum being demanded at once. Assuming the claims are spread out over just one decade, the settlement costs wo…

You should base your projection on net profits, not gross, given that these would be additional expenses (not considering tax effect). Johnson & Johnson net income for the twelve months ending March 31, 2023 was $12.724B, a 35.83% decline year-over-year. Johnson & Johnson annual net income for 2022 was $17.941B, a 14.07% decline from 2021. Johnson & Johnson annual net income for 2021 was $20.878B, a 41.89% increase f…

This does not really affect the overall picture - for decades of fraud, this is a paultry sum

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

#267

Post by orthecreedence » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:36 PM UTC

scott_w wrote: post #197

c0nducktr wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because there are more people who might need to sue the company isn't a reason to allow it to continue to operate. This is just 'too big to fail' but for different (and now theoretical) reasons. Maybe the solution is to nationalize J&J. "You can't bankrupt my company because someone might need to sue me later" is absurd reasoning.

And what good will bankrupting J&J at the first lawsuit do for society?

"What good will it do society to punish people who do heinous things to others?" It acts as a great deterrent to keep other corporate stooges from entering into high-risk activities. In many cases I advocate for "restorative justice" as opposed to punishment, but in the case of faceless corporations we can crash their value to 0 and call it even.

We have a system of private ownership where the owners get to reap the rewards of others' labor, but when they do something wrong they pull the "but think of the employees" bullshit. No. Full ownership, full liability.

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

#268

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:36 PM UTC

nl wrote: post #31

akira2501 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is a class action somehow impossible if they don't declare bankruptcy? Or they can't distribute money as easily as in a class action? The mechanics of this don't sound so absolutely necessary. Further, if your company produces products that kill or injure people, then why should we show any interest in maintaining that companies existence with odd legal hacks like this? Shouldn't they be disbanded, their assets sold,…

> Is a class action somehow impossible if they don't declare bankruptcy? Or they can't distribute money as easily as in a class action? The issue is that there might be multiple actions, and compensation might be used up byt the first one (eg, if the company was sent into bankruptcy by the first class action, then subsequent cases would be useless). This is a pretty reasonable argument IMHO. > Further, if your compan…

> J&J produces a lot of things that aren't talc

And I donate to charity, but if I put a poison in coffee before selling it to you, I will be in prison, but JJ gets to limit liability

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

#269

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

dumpsterdiver wrote: post #59

nl wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is a class action somehow impossible if they don't declare bankruptcy? Or they can't distribute money as easily as in a class action? The issue is that there might be multiple actions, and compensation might be used up byt the first one (eg, if the company was sent into bankruptcy by the first class action, then subsequent cases would be useless). This is a pretty reasonable argument IMHO. > Further, if your compan…

> Further, if your company produces products that kill or injure people, then why should we show any interest in maintaining that companies existence with odd legal hacks like this? > This seems fairly debatable. To be fair, we might not have some of the drugs many of us are prescribed to us if we just cancelled every company that ever hurt anyone with experimental drugs.

> cancelled every company that ever hurt anyone with experimental drugs.

"This baby powder is an experimental drug and may have unknown and lethal side effects" - did it say this on the packaging?

If it did, fair play. Some people would be happy to try experimental and dangerous cure for cancer.

But somehow I have a suspicion that the potential market share for experimental and dangerous baby powder is about 0%.

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

#270

Post by ClumsyPilot » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 4:43 PM UTC

scott_w wrote: post #57

littlestymaar wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then it's J&J as a whole that should go bankrupt, no a shell company designed for damage-control purposes…

That’s all well and good until you discover that you were affected by something else they did but you can’t sue them any more because they went bust servicing the talc powder claims.

This is the most absurd reasoning I've seen al week

"I am sorry, we cant imprison this murderer for life, what if he killed someone else and they need to sue him too, we can't i prison him for life twice!"