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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

#191

Post by rootusrootus »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #176
bradford wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone find it strange that this is described as a loss for the victims? I can see it going both ways, yes: this means that 6 billion dollars are not immediately available for compensation. On the other hand, certain states (Washington was one, if I recall) argued that 6 billion dollars was such a pitifully small amount (relative to the damage done) that they declined to accept compensation in hopes that futur…

> certain states (Washington was one, if I recall) argued that 6 billion dollars was such a pitifully small amount (relative to the damage done) that they declined to accept compensation As the dissent notes, “all 50 state Attorneys General have signed on to this plan.” The holdouts were “a small group of Canadian creditors and one lone individual.” I always thought of the Sackler carve-out as a scam. But the dissent…

> This ruling trades restitution for retribution

IMO the money is a pittance, sounds like a lot but it's just a fraction of what the federal government spends on any given day. We can afford to carve out the financial resources to help victims. The retribution is totally worth it, because it needs to be understood that behavior like this will get punished. It should be painful, not just the cost of doing business.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#192

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rootusrootus wrote: post #191
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> certain states (Washington was one, if I recall) argued that 6 billion dollars was such a pitifully small amount (relative to the damage done) that they declined to accept compensation As the dissent notes, “all 50 state Attorneys General have signed on to this plan.” The holdouts were “a small group of Canadian creditors and one lone individual.” I always thought of the Sackler carve-out as a scam. But the dissent…

> This ruling trades restitution for retribution IMO the money is a pittance, sounds like a lot but it's just a fraction of what the federal government spends on any given day. We can afford to carve out the financial resources to help victims. The retribution is totally worth it, because it needs to be understood that behavior like this will get punished. It should be painful , not just the cost of doing business.

I agree, but absent John Stewart taking it up [1] were not paying out the victims, and I’m not a victim, so it’s easy to discount their desire for the $3,500 to $48k.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/nyregion/jon-stewart-9-11...

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#193

Post by rayiner »

jandrese wrote: post #145
jcranmer wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four decisions were released today. We had a decision on the SEC vacating some of its enforcement powers, 6-3 with only the 3 liberal justices dissenting. We had this decision, which was 5-4, although it wasn't a clear ideological split. We had a 5-4 decision vacating an EPA regulation, with the 3 liberal justices and one of the more moderate conservative justices dissenting. We had a 6-3 decision on the EMTALA-abort…

Is there any corruption law that this court won't overturn? They seem extremely "pro" on quid pro quo.

They didn't "overturn" this "corruption law." This was a prosecution under 18 USC 666, which is titled "theft or bribery concerning programs receiving federal funds." In this case, the question was framed to the Supreme Court whether 18 USC 666 applies to so-called "gratuity" payments. That framing was because the prosecution in the case below could not prove that the defendant had anticipated a payment in the future when he undertook the official act. (The defendant himself maintained that the payment was for subsequent consulting.) Federal law makes a distinction between those two things.

You can still bring an 18 USC 666 case for bribery, you just need to prove that the payment had some ability to influence the official act.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#194

Post by tracker1 »

alan-hn wrote: post #144
tracker1 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Oh absolutely, science journalism is absolutely terrible for the most part. That's why I always try to find the original paper they're reporting on to see what's actually going on Most journalists don't understand research either and I've even seen some PhD science writers get things wrong too but usually less often. Science journalism is filled with incredible sweeping claims and jumps in logic that boggle the mind…

I've seen a lot of research around nutrition, where the abstract/summary for the paper itself makes claims not reasonably backed in the paper itself. Then again, I think pharma, food and agriculture in particular have bent to financial forces over everything else.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#195

Post by rootusrootus »

rayiner wrote: post #90
dataflow wrote: post #19

How is there such a big divide in the court on this? Is the law really this unclear on the matter?

Bankruptcy is a unique creature. It's created directly in the Constitution as a federal system. Bankruptcy is inherently "equitable," which means that judicial decisions are guided by case-by-case considerations of fairness rather than strict legal rules. Bankruptcy courts have wide latitude and discretion to basically do what makes sense in each context. Here, the majority overturned something the bankrutpcy code ap…

> the creditors

Thanks, that word helps clarify my major problem with handling this as a bankruptcy case. I don't see the destroyed lives as an issue of creditors, I see them as victims. Calling off the corporations coming after an individual for unpaid debt is a whole different issue than barring individuals from going after a corporation for actual injuries.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#196

Post by rootusrootus »

dataflow wrote: post #19

How is there such a big divide in the court on this? Is the law really this unclear on the matter?

What really stuck out to me was how soft the opinions were. Especially the dissent. Rather than dry legal reasoning, it was argued much like a politician would. Maybe this happens fairly often, but usually when I read the actual decision from SCOTUS is is very specific and sober, even if I disagree with the conclusion.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#197

Post by rayiner »

rob74 wrote: post #46
psunavy03 wrote: post #25

For those claiming the Supreme Court is a political institution, I'd like to note that this was indeed a 5-4 decision. But one with Justices in the majority who were appointed by Biden, Trump, Bush 43, and Bush 41, and in the minority who were appointed by Bush 43, Obama, and Trump. It was Jackson, Gorsuch, Barrett, Alito, and Thomas in the majority and Sotomayor, Kagan, Roberts, and Kavanaugh in the minority.

I guess this is not a topic that is politically divisive, so the judges were free to vote as they saw fit. Which doesn't say anything about how they will vote on other topics, like abortion, environmental protection etc.

The justices don't vote on "abortion, environmental protection, etc." They vote on the legal vehicles that have been used to address those things. And views on those legal vehicles map onto judicial philosophies that have nothing to do with the substantive issues.

To use an analogy: there's people who think operating systems should be microkernels, and people who think they should be monolithic kernels. Windows NT was created to be a microkernel. But around NT 4.0 they shoved the GUI into the kernel space. If you're on the "Supreme Court of Windows NT," how do you view that? One camp might say, "NT is supposed to be a microkernel, get that GUI out of there." Another might say, "yeah but here in the real world, customers demand a fast GUI so it's fine to cut corners."

Constitutional law is basically that, except we're talking about cutting corners with the highest law in the land.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#198

Post by notoriousdel »

nickff wrote: post #143
ein0p wrote: post #129

There will be people like Sacklers until we start putting them away and throwing away the key. We do need to put rich people in jail at least every now and again, if for no other reason than to demonstrate we're not a banana republic.

> "We do need to put rich people in jail at least every now and again, if for no other reason than to demonstrate we're not a banana republic." And to that end, the USA must demonstrate that it's totalitarian and abuses people's rights?

[flagged]

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#199

Post by legitster »

richbell wrote: post #180
legitster wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> I know of no other way to read this other than lock away people because they are rich whether they are guilty or not. Is there a reason you omitted the first sentence from that quote?

The first sentence didn't contain his rationale?

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#200

Post by chasil »

rootusrootus wrote: post #187

I could see shielding from future civil liability as an option, but only after a true bankruptcy has occurred. Liquidate everything, and by that I mean everything , and then you can move on with your life. Definitely no shielding money in offshore accounts. If you're not willing to do that ... well, see you in court. Over and over, because every individual you hurt should have a chance to come at you with a liability…

One problem of which I was unaware is that the Sackler family has largely fled the United States.

Pursuing their assets introduces vast complexities of international law.

"In a brief filed on behalf of the relatives of Mortimer Sackler, most of whom are based overseas, lawyers warned of “significant litigation costs and risks” in seeking to enforce any foreign court judgments against the family if the settlement were thrown out."

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