3 ms·

More likely Monsanto appeals and the damages get much smaller. Juries like to award much larger sums than judges.

s1artibartfast 3y ago
Indeed. 250 million compensation + 2 billion punitive is an immense amount of money. The median wrongful death settlement in California is between $250,000 and $500,000, and the average payout for car accident deaths in the United States is around $1.5 million. I dont really understand the criteria around what counts as liability for a defective product. Cars and guns routinely kill people, but are useful tools. Roundup or baby powder kills someone in unintuitive and statistically remote ways, and you have multi-billion dollar settlements.
- throwup238 3y ago
  IANAL but punitive damages are meant to punish defendants to force them to reform and deter future misconduct. They're supposed to be outrageously large, otherwise they're toothless. It's kind of the grand bargain in liability law in the US - fewer regulators and regulations but courts can hand down punishing rulings. In a car or gun based wrongful death lawsuit, usually the defendant is the user not the manufacturer so punishing them with a $100 million ruling doesn't do anything - a $1.5 million ruling is already life changing unless they've got bulletproof liability insurance. They usually don't have anywhere near that kind of money and a ruling against them won't prevent future users from shooting or hitting someone with a car, whereas corporations are (ostensibly) able to make proper long term risk calculations.
- chasil 3y ago
  This makes me think of the Oberlin College judgment. The jury awarded more than the law allowed to Gibson's bakery, so the $44 million dollar judgment was cut by the judge to $25. Obviously, both Monsanto and Purdue are in a whole different class and scale of harm, but the law can and does cap damages. I don't know why the limits weren't made plain to the jurors, as it just drug out the procedure. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson's_Bakery_v._Oberlin_College https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson's_Bakery_v._Oberlin_C...
  - nick222226 3y ago
    Reduced to $25 million, to be clear.
- fnordpiglet 3y ago
  It usually has something to do with willfully hiding evidence that the product is inherently unsafe and avoiding safety protocols that would save lives. The canonical case in my mind is the Ford Pinto. They knew the flaws in the design existed but valued the cost to fix them greater than the societal cost of deaths caused by the flaws. You find these in a lot of cases like this, big tobacco, Johnson and Johnson, Purdue, etc, often have essentially evil knowing decisions to hide safety issues with their product. Cars (and to a lesser degree guns) are pretty well regulated and basically as long as you follow the spirit of the regulations and engage above board with regulators you’ll be ok. It’s a mutually agreed upon risk management between the public and the companies. There are definitely cases where a danger is known and thought acceptable and the law or regulation shifts, and you’re protected to some degree as long as you were in compliance and weren’t hiding an otherwise unknown risk. Likewise there are things you discover later and as long as you act on it in a forthright way you’re ok. But risk management isn’t about avoiding all risks. It’s about balance, and being rigorously transparent.
  - singularity2001 3y ago
    How many years after the merger with Bayer can the merger be rolled back because of hidden evidence and the enormous damages?

Indeed. 250 million compensation + 2 billion punitive is an immense amount of money. The median wrongful death settlement in California is between $250,000 and $500,000, and the average payout for car accident deaths in the United States is around $1.5 million. I dont really understand the criteria around what counts as liability for a defective product. Cars and guns routinely kill people, but are useful tools. Roundup or baby powder kills someone in unintuitive and statistically remote ways, and you have multi-billion dollar settlements.

throwup238 3y ago
IANAL but punitive damages are meant to punish defendants to force them to reform and deter future misconduct. They're supposed to be outrageously large, otherwise they're toothless. It's kind of the grand bargain in liability law in the US - fewer regulators and regulations but courts can hand down punishing rulings. In a car or gun based wrongful death lawsuit, usually the defendant is the user not the manufacturer so punishing them with a $100 million ruling doesn't do anything - a $1.5 million ruling is already life changing unless they've got bulletproof liability insurance. They usually don't have anywhere near that kind of money and a ruling against them won't prevent future users from shooting or hitting someone with a car, whereas corporations are (ostensibly) able to make proper long term risk calculations.
chasil 3y ago
This makes me think of the Oberlin College judgment. The jury awarded more than the law allowed to Gibson's bakery, so the $44 million dollar judgment was cut by the judge to $25. Obviously, both Monsanto and Purdue are in a whole different class and scale of harm, but the law can and does cap damages. I don't know why the limits weren't made plain to the jurors, as it just drug out the procedure. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson's_Bakery_v._Oberlin_College https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson's_Bakery_v._Oberlin_C...
- nick222226 3y ago
  Reduced to $25 million, to be clear.
fnordpiglet 3y ago
It usually has something to do with willfully hiding evidence that the product is inherently unsafe and avoiding safety protocols that would save lives. The canonical case in my mind is the Ford Pinto. They knew the flaws in the design existed but valued the cost to fix them greater than the societal cost of deaths caused by the flaws. You find these in a lot of cases like this, big tobacco, Johnson and Johnson, Purdue, etc, often have essentially evil knowing decisions to hide safety issues with their product. Cars (and to a lesser degree guns) are pretty well regulated and basically as long as you follow the spirit of the regulations and engage above board with regulators you’ll be ok. It’s a mutually agreed upon risk management between the public and the companies. There are definitely cases where a danger is known and thought acceptable and the law or regulation shifts, and you’re protected to some degree as long as you were in compliance and weren’t hiding an otherwise unknown risk. Likewise there are things you discover later and as long as you act on it in a forthright way you’re ok. But risk management isn’t about avoiding all risks. It’s about balance, and being rigorously transparent.
- singularity2001 3y ago
  How many years after the merger with Bayer can the merger be rolled back because of hidden evidence and the enormous damages?