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.
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.
"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.
Bankrupting J&J would achieve none of the things you say you want. It would just mean the first to sue gets everything and everyone else gets nothing. The assets get stripped and sold off to the next company who can just continue to do the same thing.
> The assets get stripped and sold off to the next company who can just continue to do the same thing.
But the shareholders of J&J lose everything, making the ones of the next company think twice before doing the same… Whereas with the shell company bankruptcy, J&J shareholders losses are limited, and they still own and run the company that killed thousands of people.
Ask yourself “what good had jailing Charles Manson at the first lawsuit done for society?” then remember that J&J is responsible for thousands more death than Manson, and likely more than all psycho killers in the history of the US combined…
Rogue corporations are killing people at a scaled rivalled only by dictators…
At least THIRTY NINE THOUSAND people suffered from a cancer that would have been avoided if the execs, who knew about the dangerousness of their product, stopped selling their contaminated crap. We're talking about TENS OF THOUSANDS of shattered lives, children who ended up growing without a mother, and women not able to bear children because the cancer destroyed their body.
This is what's “insane”.
The people who knowingly made this happen are literal monsters, there's just no other words.
If I understand your statement correctly, the idea posited is that a company which has had a large ruling against it should be able to avoid paying out the total amount assessed against it because someone might also have been harmed that could theoretically bring suit?
I don’t really think that some hypothetical future lawsuit is a valid basis to avoid the consequences arrived at for the current one. If one can simply make a virtual entity that holds all of your liabilities and then set it on fire to avoid paying them, isn’t that just a modern play on the ancient tradition of the scapegoat?
Putting all your sins on someone or something else didn’t absolve you then and it should not be a legal way to get out of paying for your mistakes now.
Please read the Matt Levine article that was linked a couple of comments upthread.
You (and many other commenters) seem to be under the impression that the bankruptcy procedure was done for the purpose of "avoiding paying out the total amount assessed against it", when that was not at all the case.
I read that article, and currently consider myself inadequately informed to analyze the legal and financial implications of the particulars of the J&J issue. It seems rather complex and I’m not a lawyer who has reviewed the relevant filings and documents.
My comment was only intended to be a response to the idea posited that some future hypothetical case should have any bearing on present reality. This belief in imaginary cases’ right to be considered in the legal system is turning up in interesting places lately, and I felt compelled to weigh in.
You didn’t understand my statement at all. You also didn’t understand the Matt Levine article because he doesn’t posit any of the things you claim either.
As I understand it, the article describes how, for companies that are going bankrupt, handling victim payouts through bankruptcy is more equitable, since it considers the situation holistically, rather than on a first-come first-serve basis.
However, for companies like J&J that aren't actually going bankrupt, this process also allows them to protect their business and to pay less than they would normally. Otherwise, why wouldn't they just file for bankruptcy directly?
> this process also allows them to protect their business
Obviously, yes.
> to pay less than they would normally.
Not necessarily.
You missed the part where they have a specialist court divide up the claims in a single go, rather than have ad-hoc juries hand out different awards to different claimants.
> aren't actually going bankrupt
You’re missing the part that this is kind of allowed in Texas courts. It’s not unrestricted - the court kicked back the first attempt.
> You missed the part where they have a specialist court divide up the claims in a single go, rather than have ad-hoc juries hand out different awards to different claimants.
What gives you that impression?
> You’re missing the part that this is kind of allowed in Texas courts.
It would seem that what they did was not allowed, given that they lost their case.
Okay. There is zero chance that the corporate lawyers are doing this to ensure that the next people killed by J&J can collect.
“We can’t pay out for these deaths because then we will be out of money to pay out for the other deaths.”
This is only a compelling argument if J&J agrees to dissolve their entire company and work with the courts to distribute 100% of their wealth to aggrieved parties. Let’s see how much they cooperate with that.
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!"
This is a ridiculous comparison. Murder is criminal law and we’re talking about civil law (tort). The two are handled completely differently, with different laws and procedures.
Yeah I know - unlike corporations, individuals can’t kill people and escape criminal responsibility. It happens time and again, look at DuPont, Boeing max, etc.