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And the settlement reached was around 0.0086 DuPont's yearly revenue to be provided for education, water treatment facilities and medical expenses of the class

And the settlement reached was around 0.0086 DuPont's yearly revenue to be provided for education, water treatment facilities and medical expenses of the class action members. Is that really going to deter them from doing it again? Where is the real penalty? http://www.hpcbd.com/Personal-Injury/DuPont-C8/C8-Class-Action-Settlement.shtml http://www.hpcbd.com/Personal-Injury/DuPont-C8/C8-Class-Acti...

gioele 11y ago
> And the settlement reached was around 0.0086 DuPont's yearly revenue to be provided for education, water treatment facilities and medical expenses of the class action members. > Is that really going to deter them from doing it again? Where is the real penalty? Stefano Quintarelli, an Italian ISP-owner-turned-ITC-journalist has the nice habit of converting those "huge" fines ("millions of euros!") into equivalent fines for people with normal incomes. In this case he would write "The equivalent fine for a person with an average income of € 30k per year would had been € 258."
- anentropic 11y ago
  this is great, I'd like to see this in every news article!
rayiner 11y ago
It's a settlement, not a fine. The value is a function of damages, discounted by litigation risk and time. Revenues has nothing to do with it. If I negligently burn down your shed, what I owe you in a tort action has nothing to do with how much money I make.
- eevilspock 11y ago
  And what if you made all of that money precisely because you were burning down sheds? Granted, the more just and commensurate judgement that lumberjack rightly seeks must be paid to the world as a whole, with the workers' share being a function of their damages, as you said. My point is you are focusing on the technical and completely ignoring the moral cry for justice expressed by lumberjack.
  - rayiner 11y ago
    I'm focusing on the technical and ignoring the "moral cry for justice" because I'm making a technical point, not a moral one. The primary purpose of the tort system is compensation, and only indirectly deterrence. There are more appropriate avenues for punishment and deterrence, such as criminal actions.
    - eevilspock 11y ago
      Fair enough, except that you and I know the latter never happens.
Zigurd 11y ago
It surprises me that there are not more cases where the productive assets of a business are turned over to plaintiffs to generate multi-year revenue for mitigation of effects and compensation for victims, especially in cases of serious long-term environmental contamination.

gioele 11y ago

> And the settlement reached was around 0.0086 DuPont's yearly revenue to be provided for education, water treatment facilities and medical expenses of the class action members. > Is that really going to deter them from doing it again? Where is the real penalty? Stefano Quintarelli, an Italian ISP-owner-turned-ITC-journalist has the nice habit of converting those "huge" fines ("millions of euros!") into equivalent fines for people with normal incomes. In this case he would write "The equivalent fine for a person with an average income of € 30k per year would had been € 258."

anentropic 11y ago
this is great, I'd like to see this in every news article!

rayiner 11y ago

It's a settlement, not a fine. The value is a function of damages, discounted by litigation risk and time. Revenues has nothing to do with it. If I negligently burn down your shed, what I owe you in a tort action has nothing to do with how much money I make.

eevilspock 11y ago
And what if you made all of that money precisely because you were burning down sheds? Granted, the more just and commensurate judgement that lumberjack rightly seeks must be paid to the world as a whole, with the workers' share being a function of their damages, as you said. My point is you are focusing on the technical and completely ignoring the moral cry for justice expressed by lumberjack.
- rayiner 11y ago
  I'm focusing on the technical and ignoring the "moral cry for justice" because I'm making a technical point, not a moral one. The primary purpose of the tort system is compensation, and only indirectly deterrence. There are more appropriate avenues for punishment and deterrence, such as criminal actions.
  - eevilspock 11y ago
    Fair enough, except that you and I know the latter never happens.

Zigurd 11y ago

It surprises me that there are not more cases where the productive assets of a business are turned over to plaintiffs to generate multi-year revenue for mitigation of effects and compensation for victims, especially in cases of serious long-term environmental contamination.