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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

#321

Post by timemct »

legitster wrote: post #299
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since this 5-4 decision didn't follow the "conservative" or "liberal" split at all.

And honestly, while we like to lump them into "conservative" and "liberal" camps for simplicity, it's easy to get the correlation wrong. Like anyone else, their moral and legal philosophies might make them lean one way or another politically, not the other way around. Even for the most extremely political justices, to hear them expound on the legal principles of federalism or human rights is very fascinating. It's ea…

Save for at least one current sitting Justice: Amy Coney Barrett. They only had ~3 years of experience being a judge, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (2017–2020), before being nominated to the Supreme Court. Yes, they have experience in other law related roles, however your comment explicitly stated, "...fairly long careers as acting judges...," so that is what I'm speaking to.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#322

Post by glitch13 »

shawndrost wrote: post #280

I understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, Purdue should be shut down, and we should transform the legal regime around opioids. I understand people who think Purdue should continue, the status quo is OK, and the Sacklers are not [simply] villainous. I don't understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, but Purdue should continue operating more-or-less as-…

The ruling was only about whether or not a bankruptcy court has the legal authority to declare that the individual members of the Sackler family are immune to being sued directly, which is an agreed-upon condition of the bankruptcy settlement. SCOTUS ruled that it did not, so the settlement as it stands is dead.

Purdue is not going to be operating in any capacity regardless of this ruling (except as a bank account holding the settlement funds).

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#323

Post by OrigamiPastrami »

legitster wrote: post #299
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since this 5-4 decision didn't follow the "conservative" or "liberal" split at all.

And honestly, while we like to lump them into "conservative" and "liberal" camps for simplicity, it's easy to get the correlation wrong. Like anyone else, their moral and legal philosophies might make them lean one way or another politically, not the other way around. Even for the most extremely political justices, to hear them expound on the legal principles of federalism or human rights is very fascinating. It's ea…

> It's easy to forget that, while they are political appointees, they have to have fairly long careers as acting judges to even qualify for the appointments.

This is objectively false. There are no requirements like this and there have been several appointees throughout history without many, if any, qualifications for the role.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#324

Post by s1artibartfast »

blkhawk wrote: post #294
s1artibartfast wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The case and settlement has almost nothing to do with solving the problem at a societal level, with either outcome being negligible. Real progress would involve systemic changes to the treatment and causes of drug addiction, as well as medical treatment philosophy. To hang the opioid epidemic on perdue is a gross oversimplification, essentially a scapegoating of a multifactorial problem. Perdue sold the same pills in…

I think that was because they could more effectively market their "pain is bad mkay" strategy in the culturally and politically more homogeneous market that is the US. The European healthcare market is completely different for each country in multiple dimensions. Be it political, the way insurance is structured, laws are setup and governmental agencies handle them. That means while it is entirely possible to sell the…

I dont think the idea that patient pain is bad was unique to perdue and their drugs. Many European countries have private health insurance, with reimbursement quite similar to the US.

Like I said above, I think it would be extremely shallow thinking to claim that there is a single reason.

If I were to pick a leading difference, I would say that the US has embraced trained consumerism to a greater degree than most European countries. As such, the idea that a simple pill/product will make a problem go away has more traction, both with prescribers, patients, and abusers.

You see this difference manifest in many cultural and social forms, where people in the US are especially prone to "quick fix" marketing and products that offer escape and excitement through consumption.

This is one thing that leads into higher rates of substance abuse in the US than Europe. For example, the US has a higher rate of alcohol use disorder than most European countries, despite most of the countries having more permissive laws around alcohol and more consumption of it on average.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#325

Post by wesselbindt »

shawndrost wrote: post #280

I understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, Purdue should be shut down, and we should transform the legal regime around opioids. I understand people who think Purdue should continue, the status quo is OK, and the Sacklers are not [simply] villainous. I don't understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, but Purdue should continue operating more-or-less as-…

The only way is if it is done without a profit driven system incentivizing their overprescription. But this requires a gigantic systemic overhaul of healthcare to a nationalized system. And there seems to be a lot of peer reviewed evidence in favor of such a system, and there seems to be broad popular support for such a system. Yet we never manage to get there. It's almost like there's a group of people who simultaneously benefit from its existence and have the capital to influence legislation in their favor. Feels almost undemocratic.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#326

Post by michael_vo »

Mistletoe wrote: post #307
shawndrost wrote: post #280

I understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, Purdue should be shut down, and we should transform the legal regime around opioids. I understand people who think Purdue should continue, the status quo is OK, and the Sacklers are not [simply] villainous. I don't understand people who think the Sacklers are villains who destroyed lives, but Purdue should continue operating more-or-less as-…

I mean I have been prescribed opioids many times and I just take them as prescribed and they help the pain of the surgery or whatever. I don’t even take the whole bottle. What will replace the opioids if we don’t allow them to be prescribed?

Could you have recovered without pain killers? Or maybe used a pain killer that is much weaker that doesn't kill all the pain but is much safer like marijuana?

Are there scientific studies that shows that opioids help patients recover quicker?

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#327

Post by richwater »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #221
rootusrootus wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You may find the money a pittance, but the victims decided otherwise. When you say 'the victims' are you implying they all agreed to this? So they are all okay with giving up their individual right to sue for damages? You make several points which imply that this is some kind of consensus position that everyone is okay with. That's the root of the problem, though -- this settlement in no way addresses the damage to…

The case and settlement has almost nothing to do with solving the problem at a societal level, with either outcome being negligible. Real progress would involve systemic changes to the treatment and causes of drug addiction, as well as medical treatment philosophy. To hang the opioid epidemic on perdue is a gross oversimplification, essentially a scapegoating of a multifactorial problem. Perdue sold the same pills in…

> To hang the opioid epidemic on perdue is a gross oversimplification

The only sane comment here. It's laughably ridiculous to call for retribution against a single family as if they were personally responsible for every overdose the country has seen.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#328

Post by buildbot »

legitster wrote: post #299
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially since this 5-4 decision didn't follow the "conservative" or "liberal" split at all.

And honestly, while we like to lump them into "conservative" and "liberal" camps for simplicity, it's easy to get the correlation wrong. Like anyone else, their moral and legal philosophies might make them lean one way or another politically, not the other way around. Even for the most extremely political justices, to hear them expound on the legal principles of federalism or human rights is very fascinating. It's ea…

Amy Coney Barrett only served 3 years as a judge - that doesn't seem very long at all.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#329

Post by dwallin »

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…

I disagree. The dissent focused way too much on emotional appeals. It shouldn’t matter if the remedy was popular amongst the primary parties if the law doesn’t allow for such a remedy, “it was popular” is not a solid legal footing.

If we want to make sure that the victims of people like the Sacklers can get some justice then let’s actually write some laws for that purpose. Let’s remove the loopholes that let them make a ton of money at the expense of a nation, and them take it all offshore. Let’s add transparency to corporate structuring. Let’s fully pierce the corporate veil for egregious situations such as this.

What we shouldn’t do is allow the powerful yet another tool to escape consequences. Whether or not this particular deal was a net-positive for victims is besides the point. It gives too much power to bankruptcy judges and is a ripe avenue for corruption. Go to a “friendly” judge and have them absolve you of any personal liability, then send them a nice gift basket full of Benjamins, now fully legally (Thanks Supreme Court!).

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#330

Post by legitster »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #289
legitster wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They took in something like $11 billion and were going to fund something like $6 billion. As far as purely pragmatic solutions go this was not a bad deal for victims. There are a lot of members of the Sackler family and a lot of them have a lot of money despite personally not being connected to the Purdue business in any way. Even if they could all be connected to wrongdoing actually getting money from, like, the sec…

$6 billion dollars is a lot of money, but it's also just half of what they profited from what was effectively mass murder. Is that really something you want to let people buy their way out of for less than they profited?

Think of it this way - if you found out your great-grand-uncle was a Nazi official, and that the house you grew up in or the favorable college you got into or whatever lifestyle you had growing up was initially partly funded by his misdeeds? Could your assets be targeted by descendants of the victims and you personally be made bankrupt?

That's a bit of an exaggeration, but a lot of the wealth of the Sackler family is distributed this way. The original brothers have died, there is a huge lump of easily gotten money from the direct family, and then there is a lot of money that has been spread around 2 or 3 generations removed. At a certain point if you want the full $11 billion you are going to have to go into the weeds.

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