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Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#131

Post by nox101 »

legitster wrote: post #120

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 mor…

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.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#132

Post by tracker1 »

alan-hn wrote: post #125
tracker1 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"trust the science" edit: it's meant in sarcasm, mostly.

We can trust the process of science but we need to be mindful of how to critically examine a body of literature. When I see most lay people examine literature all they do is cherry pick what they like and discard the rest and ignore any analysis or methodological concerns

This generally seems to be true. It doesn't help that poor reporting methods exacerbate the issue.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#133

Post by ahartmetz »

legitster wrote: post #120

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 mor…

> 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.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#134

Post by legitster »

inasio wrote: post #112

Matt Levine has covered this several times in the past, worth reading. From memory, the Purdue family had put away their money in legally sheltered arrangements, so even an unfavorable decision (to the Sacklers) would likely not be able to claw back much money. The previous deal traded the risk of trial for a perceived as decent compensation. My read is that the majority in the supreme court disagreed that you can al…

They were (apparently) sheltering money specifically to pay for personal legal damages, and they voluntarily offered it back during the bankruptcy proceedings in exchange for giving up their liability.

The court ruling is not about the legality of their financial shenanigans, but the authority of the bankruptcy court on deciding such matters.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#135

Post by raizer88 »

legitster wrote: post #120

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 mor…

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

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#136

Post by adastra22 »

vanderZwan wrote: post #108

> WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday blew up the massive bankruptcy reorganization of opioid maker Purdue Pharma, finding that the settlement inappropriately included legal protections for the Sackler family, meaning that billions of dollars secured for victims is now threatened. Does anyone find it strange that this is described as a loss for the victims?

Well, it is. The victims had a settlement agreement worth billions of dollars, which the Sackler family was going to willingly provide in exchange for legal protections.

Now that legal protections are off the table, it is very unlikely that any new settlement will be as generous, and in fact quite unlikely that any settlement will be achieved at all.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#137

Post by JumpCrisscross »

vanderZwan wrote: post #108

> WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday blew up the massive bankruptcy reorganization of opioid maker Purdue Pharma, finding that the settlement inappropriately included legal protections for the Sackler family, meaning that billions of dollars secured for victims is now threatened. Does anyone find it strange that this is described as a loss for the victims?

> Does anyone find it strange that this is described as a loss for the victims?

As the dissent notes, this decision means the victims won’t get money now. When is an open question, as well as whether it will be similar, more or less after litigation costs, and to whom it will be paid.

What is certain is the Sacklers will be hurt more. (Unless a couple bizarre legal maneuvres pay off, e.g. the Sacklers extinguishing liability by way of a 2004 indemnification agreement.) So in a sense, this is deterrence and retribution winning over restitution [1].

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

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#138

Post by Vt71fcAqt7 »

BoredPositron wrote: post #93
Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Force does not mean "no choice." >to make something happen or make someone do something difficult, unpleasant, or unusual, especially by threatening or not offering the possibility of choice[0] (notice or here) >If someone forces you to do something, they make you do it even though you do not want to, for example, by threatening you.[1] >to make someone do something that they do not want to do > I was forced to take…

Yeah, still nobody can "force you to trust" anything. They might force you to comply with something but they can't force you to trust. That's just nonsense.

I didn't commend on that. I commented on you replying "no" to the question "If your boss tells you you'll lose your job if you don't have sex with him, and you quit to avoid that, would you disagree with the statement that you were forced to quit?" after which you edited all your previous comments. The first of which originally just read "force?" (a single word) which leads me to believe, along with your original response to the point I initially commented on, that you didn't have that point in mind. Also, "tust" in "force people to trust the medical industry" clearly means something along the lines of "to commit or place in one's care or keeping."[0] But that point is irrelevant because you made up that point after my initial response.

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trust

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#139

Post by JumpCrisscross »

raizer88 wrote: post #135
legitster wrote: post #120

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 mor…

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...

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#140

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ahartmetz wrote: post #133
legitster wrote: post #120

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 mor…

> 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.

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