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Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

washingtonpost.com

371–380 of 691 posts

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not sure what other retribution you're suggesting. There's always public lynching if that's what you're after, but we've kind of decided that is not a good idea in modern society

Jail. Jail would be reasonable for purposefully poisoning tens of millions of people.

Point of order.

Jail is for people not convicted of crimes.

Prison is for convicts.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#372
post #350
post #259

I changed the URL from https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/06/opioid-settlement-to... to an article that has more information and a less baity title. If there's a better (more accurate and neutral) article, we can change it again.

i vote link to the ruling itself

I almost agree but I think probably the best place for that is as a link in the comments, with the best accessible third-party report at the top.

I don't know what the best accessible third-party report is though...

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, indubitably. It's easy to lose sight of (if one doesn't read the rulings regularly) the fact that SCOTUS's job is to come to rational and deliberate rulings grounded firmly in textual and common law dating back over a thousand years. Even when one doesn't agree with the conclusion, one rarely sees a ruling that isn't reasonable (though sometimes seeing the reason involves entertaining a fact pattern other than t…

Haha. Sure. Like when they make up Qualified Immunity which is a completely made up special status/protection given by the Courts, not by law or common law but abusing the concept of Judicial immunity and expanding it to all governmental officials. See Pierson v. Ray (1967)

Please make your substantive points without swipes (like "haha sure"). This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Liberal vs. conservative has always been the wrong take. The stronger dividing line is textualism vs pragmatism. In fact Scalia famously said this coming from a textualist perspective which I think most people can agree with even if they hate him: “ If you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach.” This seems absol…

The country gave up on change through legislation a long time ago so now it's down to trying to sway the court.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#375
post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet, during oral arguments they use some of the most juvenile thought experiments to prove their 'slippery slope' opinions

Nonsense. Oral arguments are the lawyers making arguments. The justices ask questions and collect answers. Their proofs are in their opinions.

Please make your substantive points without swipes or calling names. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Your post would be fine without that first bit.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#376
post #131

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…

An important but frequently overlooked aspect of the law is that by the time the courts are involve it is often too late for there to truly be justice. Things have often happened that cannot be undone. Often parties that are at fault do not have the resources to pay their share of damages.

No matter what the court does in those situations someone is getting screwed.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Liberal vs. conservative has always been the wrong take. The stronger dividing line is textualism vs pragmatism. In fact Scalia famously said this coming from a textualist perspective which I think most people can agree with even if they hate him: “ If you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach.” This seems absol…

>The stronger dividing line is textualism vs pragmatism.

They should be doing what is right for the American people. There are clearly laws on the books today which infringe on individual freedoms (abortion), harm society as a whole (citizens united), etc.

The 'justice system' is supposed to be the government branch protecting the little guy from powerful elites. I've not often seen that. I see the opposite. If the legal system won't deliver justice, well, people are going to take things into their own hands whether that's 'justice' or not. If you bury your child, and you see the people ultimately responsible get away with it, I'm not sure I could really blame them.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#378
post #259

I changed the URL from https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/06/opioid-settlement-to... to an article that has more information and a less baity title. If there's a better (more accurate and neutral) article, we can change it again.

Seems impossible to read Washington Post articles without opening them in incognito mode.

I know that's annoying but it's allowed ("paywalls with workarounds" has been the rule for a long time on HN - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989, https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html). Not that we like the annoyances any more than anyone else does, but it's the lesser of two evils.

But we can change the URL if there's a better one.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Liberal vs. conservative has always been the wrong take. The stronger dividing line is textualism vs pragmatism. In fact Scalia famously said this coming from a textualist perspective which I think most people can agree with even if they hate him: “ If you’re going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach.” This seems absol…

This is exactly it.

Both sides have their merit, but some people want to have it both ways - do you want pragmatic judges or more democracy? They can often be mutually exclusive.

Re: Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

#380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is the only place in the world AFAIK where you will get prescribed opioids for something as trivial as a wisdom tooth extraction (kind of like one of the cases cited). It is also the only place in the world AFAIK going through the opioid epidemic. Every other country in the world has got the problem of painkillers figured out. So it can't be that complicated.

Wisdom teeth was actually one of the safer use cases. You would only get a short run so it was hard to build dependance. The opioid crisis was really defined by people with chronic long-term pain being given it for years at a time.

The point is that people are overall too cavalier about opioids in the US.

I don't think it's necessary to get into the details of how much pain is enough pain, how acute is acute enough, etc... because this is not a problem essentially anywhere else in the world -- and not because they thought really hard about it.

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