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Supreme Court blocks controversial Purdue Pharma opioid settlement

pagade 2y ago
I recently watched these 3 episodes of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Highly recommended. Opioids III: The Sacklers: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCaIhfETsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCaIhfETsM) Opioids II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qCKR6wy94U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qCKR6wy94U) Opioids: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdPrQFjo2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdPrQFjo2o)
ronnier 2y ago
> Purdue made billions from OxyContin, a widely available painkiller that fueled the opioid epidemic
- 7thaccount 2y ago
  It's more complicated than that. They knew it was killing people and turning thousands (millions) into addicts and they kept pushing doctors to use it at all costs. I'd recommend the John Oliver special on it.
  - hedora 2y ago
    They also designed it to be more addictive. The recommended dosage and timing causes the patients to repeatedly experience minor withdrawal during normal use, which is a standard technique for conditioning someone into being an addict. All of this is documented in emails that were presented as evidence in court.
    - elzbardico 2y ago
      They learned it from the tobacco industry probably.
      - ARandomerDude 2y ago
        Is there a recommended dosage and timing from the tobacco industry?
        elzbardico 2y ago
        It was in jest. But part of the problem with nicotine that helps to lead to addiction is its short half-life. If you are a smoker you experience several episodes of abstinence throughout the day, so you lit just another one.
        dns_snek 2y ago
        Yes - sort of. Many of the additives found in cigarettes are designed to increase the rate of absorption of nicotine. This gives you a distinct rush within seconds of consumption, as well as a more pronounced crash that triggers intense cravings. That's very different from the effects of (freebase?) nicotine typically found in e-cigarettes which is slower to absorb and doesn't have a noticeable crash.
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      Designed it knowingly to be more addictive WHILE producing physician literature that denied or downplayed addiction risk.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Why are doctors so easy to manipulate? They learn about addiction in medical school. Why would they believe a pharmaceutical company saying "...oh but this opioid is not addictive..."
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - logicchains 2y ago
      >Why would they believe a pharmaceutical company saying "...oh but this opioid is not addictive..." Because the pharma company offered them direct or indirect benefits for doing so. Doctors are just as human and just as susceptible to financial incentive as anybody else, that's why for decades there were doctors advertising the health benefits of smoking.
    - LordKeren 2y ago
      It’s easy to overlook that OxyContin was very effective. Even a doctor acting in good faith was likely to prescribe the drug— because it worked well. It really did help people struggling with pain management. The downside, of course, was that Purdue pharma was knowingly misleading doctors on the addictiveness of the drug. Also the amount of doctors that were willing to turn a blind eye to the clear signs of addiction is very worrying.
      - radlad 2y ago
        > Also the amount of doctors that were willing to turn a blind eye to the clear signs of addiction is very worrying. No disagreement, but I think it's worth considering how stigmatized addiction is in our society. I expect many patients would hide any signs of addiction from their doctors - especially since it might result in losing their supply of OxyContin, or worse, their career.
        LordKeren 2y ago
        Yes, whole heartedly agree. The social impact of addiction and the ostracism of those suffering with addiction has undoubtedly only made this situation worse. I was more leaning towards doctors/pharmacies that were operating as pill mills - I.e. the handful of regions in the Appalachias where there were more scripts for Oxy than there were people in the county
  - sparklingmango 2y ago
    Additionally, I recommend the book Empire of Pain for an excellent deep dive into the Sackler family and how they essentially created the opioid epidemic. You'll be infuriated as you read it.
    - CaptainZapp 2y ago
      +1 An amazing read and I also highly recommend it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Pain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Pain
    - iamacyborg 2y ago
      Having read that, I still find it shocking when I see their names on various donor plaques in big British museums.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - tiffanyh 2y ago
    What responsibility does the FDA have in this? (genuinely curious, not trolling)
realce 2y ago
>The court on a 5-4 vote ruled that the bankruptcy court did not have the authority to release the Sackler family members from legal claims made by opioid victims. As part of the deal, the family, which controlled the company, had agreed to pay $6 billion that could be used to settle opioid-related claims, but only in return for a complete release from any liability in future cases. Is this actually a positive outcome or a kick-the-can?
- cogman10 2y ago
  Positive outcome. They earned hundreds of billions from their actions which resulted in the deaths of thousands. Giving them permanent immunity was insane.
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    It also makes sense to me. If someone didn't join the class action, they should not be bound by its settlement, and should be free to pursue damage claims on their own.
  - ben7799 2y ago
    Definitely a positive income. These people bear some of the responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. There is no way they should ever be immune from further punishments and get to live out the rest of their lives as billionaires.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - delichon 2y ago
    Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
    - ajdlinux 2y ago
      You mean John Roberts instead of Ketanji Brown Jackson.
roenxi 2y ago
[flagged]
- BoredPositron 2y ago
  Force? Edit: "Force to trust"? Because everyone answering didn't read ops comment.
  - logicchains 2y ago
    If your boss tells you you'll lose your job if you don't have sex with him, and you quit to avoid that, would you disagree with the statement that you were forced to quit?
    - BoredPositron 2y ago
      No, words have specific meanings that should accurately reflect the nuances of the situation at hand.
      - Vt71fcAqt7 2y ago
        Force: >violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon or against a person or thing[0] Compell: >1. to drive or urge forcefully or irresistibly >2. to cause to do or occur by overwhelming pressure[1] [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/force https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/force [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compel https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compel
        BoredPositron 2y ago
        So? "Force to trust" like op wrote made absolutely no sense.
      - binary132 2y ago
        the choice to have sex with someone or be fired is not a legitimate choice and framing it as one is also illegitimate. do you have a better suggestion for a term you would prefer?
duxup 2y ago
Link to ruling: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-124_8nk0.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-124_8nk0.pdf
dataflow 2y ago
How is there such a big divide in the court on this? Is the law really this unclear on the matter?
- throwup238 2y ago
  IANAL but most contested Supreme Court decisions I've read (going all the way back to AP gov class) sounded like they could have reasonably been decided either way depending on who had control over the court. The law is ambiguous and complex enough that there's just so many logical ways to approach a decision and little in the way of prioritizing or disambiguating them. Whatever their bias, judges have lots of ways of reasoning themselves to their predetermined outcome. This is true up and down the courts but most judges are at least somewhat worried about their reputation and their record with appeals courts, which at least mitigates their biases but the SCOTUS is free to do whatever it wants. As much as each side likes to bloviate about originalism and activist judges, SCOTUS often decides at the whims of ideology and personal bias because the law gives them lots of room.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- rayiner 2y ago
  Bankruptcy is a unique creature. It's created directly in the Constitution as a federal system. Bankruptcy is inherently "equitable," which means that judicial decisions are guided by case-by-case considerations of fairness rather than strict legal rules. Bankruptcy courts have wide latitude and discretion to basically do what makes sense in each context. Here, the majority overturned something the bankrutpcy code approved, because, in its view, the remedy of a non-consensual third-party release conflicted with the structure of the Bankruptcy Code. The dissent disagreed, pointing out there were no express prohibitions on the relief the bankruptcy court had granted, and explaining that, in their view, the bankruptcy court should have been given discretion to authorize such a release if ultimately it would make the creditors better off. Basically the majority was focused on the structure of the Code, while the dissent was focused on the practical fact that the creditors would probably get more money from the Sacklers this way than if they had pursued direct lawsuits against them.
psunavy03 2y ago
For those claiming the Supreme Court is a political institution, I'd like to note that this was indeed a 5-4 decision. But one with Justices in the majority who were appointed by Biden, Trump, Bush 43, and Bush 41, and in the minority who were appointed by Bush 43, Obama, and Trump. It was Jackson, Gorsuch, Barrett, Alito, and Thomas in the majority and Sotomayor, Kagan, Roberts, and Kavanaugh in the minority.
- bdzr 2y ago
  Most decisions are mixed or more one sided than following the standard "political lines", but those cases never get spoken about.
- LordKeren 2y ago
  Hmmm, I’m not sure pointing to singular rulings like this really demonstrates that the Supreme Court isn’t getting increasingly political.
  - mardifoufs 2y ago
    Increasingly political compared to when? And I don't think it's a singular judgement. If anything, the "ideological split" types of decisions are rarer, so it's more accurate to say that a few decisions on hot political topics doesn't mean that the SCOTUS is increasingly political.
- rob74 2y ago
  I guess this is not a topic that is politically divisive, so the judges were free to vote as they saw fit. Which doesn't say anything about how they will vote on other topics, like abortion, environmental protection etc.
  - rayiner 2y ago
    The justices don't vote on "abortion, environmental protection, etc." They vote on the legal vehicles that have been used to address those things. And views on those legal vehicles map onto judicial philosophies that have nothing to do with the substantive issues. To use an analogy: there's people who think operating systems should be microkernels, and people who think they should be monolithic kernels. Windows NT was created to be a microkernel. But around NT 4.0 they shoved the GUI into the kernel space. If you're on the "Supreme Court of Windows NT," how do you view that? One camp might say, "NT is supposed to be a microkernel, get that GUI out of there." Another might say, "yeah but here in the real world, customers demand a fast GUI so it's fine to cut corners." Constitutional law is basically that, except we're talking about cutting corners with the highest law in the land.
delichon 2y ago
Thank you. For my purpose as a reader it is editorial incompetence that the article neither provided that link, nor the name of the case to make it easy to lookup.
- duxup 2y ago
  For SCOTUS related news I always hit up SCOTUSblog: https://www.scotusblog.com/ https://www.scotusblog.com/ They do a good job of linking to or posting quality articles.
- jcranmer 2y ago
  At least it is for SCOTUS decisions to find the decision quickly (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinion/23 https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinion/23 has a list of all opinions from the current time, updated live as they are announced). It's really painful when you've got coverage of state court cases where you have neither the case name nor the court it was filed in nor the docket nor any document nor anything that would let you figure any of this out.
  - duxup 2y ago
    Yeah SCOTUS is pretty good about putting their decisions out there. Sometimes too good at it ;)
  - fock 2y ago
    as a non US-person who recently wanted to look at some cases: is there a free way to do this? Or do you have to sign up to the weird ePACER?
    - nickburns 2y ago
      You do not have to sign up for anything. SCOTUS opinions are freely-accessible public record.[0] [0] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/opinions.aspx https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/opinions.aspx
    - jcranmer 2y ago
photochemsyn 2y ago
Interestingly the same kinds of tactics used to push opiates on the general public are still being used to push amphetamine analogs - but the death rate from amphetamine addiction/overdose is much much lower (>1000X lower) than that from opiate addiction/overdose so it doesn't really hit the headlines, and arguably is not as much of a concern. From a libertarian point of view, mood- and mind-altering substance use should be the citizen's choice, but for this to not result in an epidemic of addiction, it would require a well-educated public who understands that whatever short-term apparent benefit a drug (including alcohol and nicotine and caffeine) delivers, there's always a tax that must be paid afterwards, and use must be kept below the addictive threshold, meaning if you start needing more of the drug to get the same effect, the only rational thing to do is to stop using the drug until your tolerance goes back to zero. This of couse goes against consumer society norms, where the concept of 'less is more' is almost a heresy.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  I guess I'm not sure what the point of the comparison is. If the death rate from opioid addiction were 1000x lower, I would happily bite the bullet and say Purdue did nothing wrong. Chronic pain is real and terrible - it would be great to have a solution where the downside risk is no worse than an Adderall dependency.
  - photochemsyn 2y ago
    In my experience, people who use amphetamines (and cocaine) regularly start making very bad decisions, and heavy use leads to amphetamine psychosis. A very public example of this was the behavior of the SBF / FTX / Alameda operation, where by several accounts regular amphetamine use was the norm. That doesn't mean it should be illegal, but I'd avoid associating with anyone I knew had an amphetamine or cocaine dependency.
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  The problem with mind altering substances is they can short circuit your rational thinking. So you can start with the most well-considered decision process ever and still end up addicted. In fact, this doesn't even require a substance. Gambling is plenty addictive to many. There's a kind of fallacy to thinking that sufficient education can counter biological human desires and impulses in all cases.
rahimnathwani 2y ago
The Sacklers want to have their cake and eat it. They want both: - To avoid filing for bankruptcy, and - For a bankruptcy settlement to release them from additional liability.
- nickff 2y ago
  Are you talking about the Sacklers as individuals, a family unit, or in their capacity as decision-makers for Purdue? There seem to be a relatively complex set of incentives and options in each of these capacities.
- NickC25 2y ago
  And they'll get it - they stashed a lot of their gains overseas, and they'll keep those gains while continuing to live a lavish life amongst the elites of the world. I lost a very close friend to opoid addiction, and Purdue was based one town over from where I grew up. I hope the entire Sackler family gets fined and taxed to the point of genuine destitute poverty, and then some. Genuine scum.
  - jandrese 2y ago
    I think this is where the settlement went wrong. The Sacklers were going to remain billionaires after the $6B payout. In all real respects they were going to feel no pain. They already have way more money than any of them could hope to spend in their remaining years, and that really rubbed people the wrong way. With the immunity removed they will at least spend some of their retirement in court room after court room instead of sipping drinks on the deck of one of their many megayachts. It sucks for the victims who are realistically not going to get any help before they die, but it does send a message that you can't kill thousands (probably millions) and get off scot free.
vanderZwan 2y ago
> WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday blew up the massive bankruptcy reorganization of opioid maker Purdue Pharma, finding that the settlement inappropriately included legal protections for the Sackler family, meaning that billions of dollars secured for victims is now threatened. Does anyone find it strange that this is described as a loss for the victims?
- wtallis 2y ago
  "is now threatened" is not characterizing this as a loss for the victims. It's characterizing this as opening up the possibility of a loss for the victims, relative to what had been settled. That characterization seems accurate and relevant. (This ruling also brings a certainty of delay for compensation, since negotiations for a settlement have to start anew, and with lower chances of success.)
- ahartmetz 2y ago
  > Does anyone find it strange that this is described as a loss for the victims? Pay attention to the ads appearing on NBC, I guess... (cf. Manufacturing Consent)
- adastra22 2y ago
  Well, it is. The victims had a settlement agreement worth billions of dollars, which the Sackler family was going to willingly provide in exchange for legal protections. Now that legal protections are off the table, it is very unlikely that any new settlement will be as generous, and in fact quite unlikely that any settlement will be achieved at all.
  - qarl 2y ago
    But also very likely that the case will go to court and the damages will be substantially higher.
    - micromacrofoot 2y ago
      Not really, it will be played out in a number of separate cases and each case is in a weaker position separately simply due to scale and resources. The Sacklers have an estimated $1bn liquid available to fight these things. The $6bn ruling was significant and not an amazing outcome for either side (so, a compromise). Additionally most of the Sacklers are well into old age, so they'll probably die before losing $6bn.
zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago
I blame the doctors too. I was a teen in the early/mid 2000s and even I knew about the addictiveness of oxycodone. It wasn't called hillbilly heroin for nothing.
inasio 2y ago
Matt Levine has covered this several times in the past, worth reading. From memory, the Purdue family had put away their money in legally sheltered arrangements, so even an unfavorable decision (to the Sacklers) would likely not be able to claw back much money. The previous deal traded the risk of trial for a perceived as decent compensation. My read is that the majority in the supreme court disagreed that you can always financial-engineer your way out of trials
- legitster 2y ago
  They were (apparently) sheltering money specifically to pay for personal legal damages, and they voluntarily offered it back during the bankruptcy proceedings in exchange for giving up their liability. The court ruling is not about the legality of their financial shenanigans, but the authority of the bankruptcy court on deciding such matters.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Lawyers are fixated on the money for obvious reasons, but the money will never really fix what the Sacklers did (particularly for the many victims who are now dead.) Restitution is largely a farce and we should be focusing on retribution.
  - DANmode 2y ago
    Removing the profitability angle mildly dissuades this sort of behavior in the future.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      I'm all for rendering the Sacklers paupers. Whether that money is given to surviving victims or piled up and burned matters less.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    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
deleted 2y ago
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legitster 2y ago
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 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 more money immediately. With this ruling, the Sacklers are personally legally liable again - which may make you or I more happy, but this means that victims have to pursue a much harder and more expensive set of lawsuits to get money from the Sackler family. It also means the victims of the deal don't get a voice in the proceedings, and it may also make future payouts and bankruptcies harder if there is no reason to cooperate with the state.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- nox101 2y ago
  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 the family trying to spin.
  - LordKeren 2y ago
    It’s harder because it requires piercing the veil of protection of an LLC, a legal construct that is explicitly designed to limit liabilities. There are simply more legal hurdles to this. Though I do agree with the conclusion that the bankruptcy court should not be able to grant immunity to the Sackler family. It feels deeply, deeply immoral
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > harder because it requires piercing the veil of protection of an LLC Source? It’s harder because they’re indemnified by Purdue, and their individual liability is far from established. (The opinion and dissent both refer to a monolithic “Sacklers,” but they’re individuals and trusts and whatever.)
ein0p 2y ago
There will be people like Sacklers until we start putting them away and throwing away the key. We do need to put rich people in jail at least every now and again, if for no other reason than to demonstrate we're not a banana republic.
- chasil 2y ago
  Unfortunately, this is no longer possible to a great extent. "Purdue flourished under brothers Mortimer and Raymond Sackler, who died in 2010 and 2017, respectively."
  - ein0p 2y ago
    I’m sure it was a lot more than just two people
- nickff 2y ago
  >"We do need to put rich people in jail at least every now and again, if for no other reason than to demonstrate we're not a banana republic." And to that end, the USA must demonstrate that it's totalitarian and abuses people's rights?
  - mcmcmc 2y ago
    Is rule of law totalitarian? Wealth is not be a get out of jail free card, and imprisonment is not inherently an abuse of rights. While the US prison industrial complex is vile and abusive, the cushy white collar prisons aren’t where those abuses are happening.
  - squidbeak 2y ago
    I think the poster means those rich who have committed offences, but enjoy softer penalities thanks to their wealth.
  - notoriousdel 2y ago
    [flagged]
legitster 2y ago
I find the Supreme court decisions to be fascinating reads and overall much more interesting and complicated than most news services make them out to be.
- shadowgovt 2y ago
  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 the one you believe to be true!).
  - voidfunc 2y ago
    Lol, they're also quite ideological. Don't fall for the trap that these people are enlightened philosophers. They have a lot of flaws in their own right. Ask good lawyers about their thoughts on SCOTUS Justices, it's not always peachy.
    - legitster 2y ago
      Even if they are ideological, they are not usually political hacks (cough Thomas cough). Honestly though, for as much flak as this current court gets, there is at least a certain consistency where they at least mostly stick to arguments about the letter of the law. In previous courts you would see some truly wild written arguments about how, like, a specific word in the Commerce Clause or whatever could mean whatever you wanted it to.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    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)
rootusrootus 2y ago
I could see shielding from future civil liability as an option, but only after a true bankruptcy has occurred. Liquidate everything, and by that I mean everything, and then you can move on with your life. Definitely no shielding money in offshore accounts. If you're not willing to do that ... well, see you in court. Over and over, because every individual you hurt should have a chance to come at you with a liability claim.
- chasil 2y ago
  One problem of which I was unaware is that the Sackler family has largely fled the United States. Pursuing their assets introduces vast complexities of international law. "In a brief filed on behalf of the relatives of Mortimer Sackler, most of whom are based overseas, lawyers warned of “significant litigation costs and risks” in seeking to enforce any foreign court judgments against the family if the settlement were thrown out."
  - lycopodiopsida 2y ago
    The US are proud of getting some terrorist in the middle of Pakistan or putting pressure on whistleblowers internationally but when big money is involved getting a criminal scumbag responsible for ~1m deaths is suddenly a huge problem.
    - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
      Listen, we can't spend like we did going after Julian Assange on this. It's just business people doing business.
      - wmf 2y ago
        El Chapo is crying.
        _DeadFred_ 2y ago
        El Chapo was free to form a corporation and then create an indemnification agreement between that company and himself. That he chose not to is on him.
qarl 2y ago
Seems like the justices missed a great opportunity here to rule in favor of the settlement and then receive $$$$$$ next year as a thank you gift. Because buying government officials is now entirely legal. https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scope-of-anti-bribery-law/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scop...
petesergeant 2y ago
> Justices Kavanaugh, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Roberts disagreed Fascinating split
- tunesmith 2y ago
  Strong language, too, against the majority that includes Jackson ("Brown Jackson"?).
jpalawaga 2y ago
This is the only reasonable outcome... you can't deny some people justice just because other people think it's fine. The sacklers have done immeasurable damage to the country. All of their wealth should be removed. Their foundation should be dismantled and used to fund damage and mental health services for addicts of the opioid crisis that they went on to create. And perhaps some of the individual pushers/purveyors of the drugs, too.
- lokar 2y ago
  More narrowly, a judge can’t impose an outcome or settlement on someone where the law does not allow for it.
- petesergeant 2y ago
  Yes, although in theory the justices are ruling on what the law means, rather than ruling on what they think it should mean for justice to be served.
- robnado 2y ago
  Agreed, they should be made an example of. Everyone involved in the fraud of getting this medication approved and then marketed to millions of people should face a fair trial and should be made an example of if found guilty. There is no reason that this medication should have been approved or marketed the way it was, especially considering what the medical community already knew about opioids and the harm they can cause.
  - polotics 2y ago
    Considering the three strikes rule and other extremely punitive judgement against drug offenders, how are the sacklers still not in solitary?
  - ensignavenger 2y ago
    The immunity deal on the table here was for civil litigation, not criminal trials. The Sackler family can still declare bankruptcy on their own, they just can't use the bankruptcy of their company to extend protection to themselves- which does make sense. But nothing that was proposed would have shielded them from criminal prosecution.
CSMastermind 2y ago
Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40810767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40810767
- dang 2y ago
  (we merged that thread hither)
esd_g0d 2y ago
What share of the guild do the medical providers that prescribed the opioids to their patients have? There would be no opioid crisis if none were willing to do it.
- legitster 2y ago
  Scott Alexander had a very interesting writeup about his experiences: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudoaddiction/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudo...
  - nickff 2y ago
    I just read it (because of your link), and commend it to other people in this thread; quite a well-described and interesting position.
  - esd_g0d 2y ago
    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.
    - loeg 2y ago
      Wisdom teeth extraction is far from trivial and opioids are a very reasonable prescription for pain from that surgery.
      - esd_g0d 2y ago
        Literally does not happen in two countries that I know of, and I bet in many countries of the world (developed ones even).
      - saint_fiasco 2y ago
        Objectively, opioids are prescribed much less often outside the US. Subjectively, I got four wisdom teeth extracted in two sessions of two extractions each. Both times I only needed generic acetaminophen to manage the pain. Perhaps an US surgeon have insisted on doing it all in one session, in which case I would have found the pain and discomfort intolerable and opioids would have made more sense. In any case, they should probably figure out why their patients are in more pain than the patients of foreign surgeons and fix that. It could be something silly like them being less gentle during surgery because they are used to their patients being on opioids.
xeckr 2y ago
I don't understand the hatred directed at the Sacklers. Oxycodone is, just like all other opiates, highly effective at suppressing pain, potentially addictive, and deadly in large enough doses. This has been common medical knowledge for millennia. Why do so many people believe that they are responsible for overdose deaths?
- throwway120385 2y ago
  Because they marketed an opioid as an "extended release" form when they knew from their own internal studies that the pain relief only lasted the standard 6 hours instead of the 8 hours that were claimed. As a result, people would find themselves taking more to stay on top of their symptoms and the resulting ramp in use would leave people debilitated.
  - lokar 2y ago
    It was also pitched as abuse resistant (something about it being hard to grind up the pills), which they also knew to be untrue.
- esd_g0d 2y ago
  Exactly. It took the collaboration of many different people, all of which also profited from it, to bring about the opioid crisis.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
    The vendor who sells many different things seems to be at least a bit less culpable than the provider who sells just their thing while lying about certain effects of it. Yes, we can examine how we got into this situation where doctors take drug advice from the people who make the drugs but the people who lied for profit deserve the lion's share of the criticism.
    - esd_g0d 2y ago
      In practice, even many of the general public knew that what the vendor was selling was addictive and dangerous -- there are some reports even in this thread. So it's hard for the vendor to claim ignorance, even more so when often they also stood to profit from the lie (repeat customers).
louwrentius 2y ago
Without proper context, it’s not clear to me if this is good or bad. It bad for the victims because there’s no settlement. It’s good for justice as people with a ton of money shouldn’t be above the law.
- lokar 2y ago
  It’s good if you think judges should follow the law more or less as written by congress. The whole concept of a 3rd party release in bankruptcy is simply not in the law. Congress could add it, but they have not.
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dang 2y ago
I changed the URL from https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/06/opioid-settlement-toppled-as-scotus-rejects-sacklers-immunity-in-5-4-ruling/ 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.
- datadrivenangel 2y ago
  Thanks Dang!
- strathmeyer 2y ago
  Seems impossible to read Washington Post articles without opening them in incognito mode.
  - dang 2y ago
    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/item?id=10178989, https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html 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.
- rc_mob 2y ago
  i vote link to the ruling itself
  - dang 2y ago
    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...
shadowgovt 2y ago
Court skipped an opportunity to quote Franklin, since "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" actually referred to a legislature entertaining a very similar Faustian bargain (i.e. value now in exchange for perpetual promise to remove responsibility from a family). ... but probably the correct choice, as that was a legislative, not judicial, circumstance and their decision in the time has no bearing on jurisprudence.
deleted 2y ago
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shawndrost 2y ago
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-is. Which is, I think, the conclusion from this settlement. If this is you, can you help me understand? Do you think there is/was a realistic way to prescribe opioids routinely and safely?
- legitster 2y ago
  The settlement was not at all about Purdue operating as is. Purdue was going to be turned into a legal fund and treatment provider as part of the settlement agreement.
  - shawndrost 2y ago
    Under the bankruptcy settlement, Purdue will continue to sell opioids. The ownership will change (profits will be used to fund the causes you listed) but the operations will not. Right?
    - legitster 2y ago
      You know I can't actually find a lot of details about what the "new" Purdue was supposed to operate like - my understanding was that it was going to turn into a receivership under the court. But that's kind of the weirdness of all of this - at no point was OxyContin itself banned or been made illegal.
- yostrovs 2y ago
  I understand there's fraud and bribes and such, but it seems to me that in the end it is doctors and the medical system, with a bit of help from government regulators, that decide prescriptions, dosages, limitations and such. Purdue could have been making pure poison, but they don't prescribe anything.
janalsncm 2y ago
Pound for pound, the Sacklers probably did more damage to America than any other drug dealers in history. More damage than any serial killer or mass shooter. In my mind they should be considered public enemies 1 through N. I sincerely hope they face civil and criminal liabilities for what they’ve done.
- janice1999 2y ago
  You're really underselling it if anything. Over a million Americans have died so far in the opioid epidemic. That more than any of their wars, including their civil war.
  - mktemp-d 2y ago
    A good book to read regarding this topic is "Death in Mud Lick" by Eric Eyre who was a reporter for a local newspaper in WV during the early discovery phase of the epidemic. The book details the methods used by the drug companies to pedal these drugs into small communities, the tragic victims, and lastly the refusal of drug suppliers to admit any wrong doing. There's also a slight dose (no pun intended) of WV AG's sheer incompetence on the matter due to donations and gifts by said drug suppliers. Super depressing book, but great read nonetheless.
    - checkyoursudo 2y ago
      *peddle
      - disillusioned 2y ago
        Fun fact: early opioid deliveries were actually, in fact, almost exclusively done by bicycle!
        janalsncm 2y ago
        If they used those penny farthing bicycles I’m sure they needed quite a few painkillers.
farceSpherule 2y ago
Fraudulent Transfer... From Reddit... Piercing the corporate veil would mean disregarding the corporate form entirely. It usually comes up when the owner-manager of a company fails to distinguish the corporation as a separate entity with its own purpose and finances, using the company as a personal piggie bank or otherwise going about life as usual and not going through the motions required of corporations under the law. What plaintiffs have alleged against the Sacklers is different, and specific to bankruptcy. Perdue is out of money and is bankrupt, mostly because it caused billions of dollars of damages to hundreds of thousands of people and to the states (which now have to clean up the opioid mess). But not that long before it went bankrupt, it was swimming in money. Perdue didn't use those profits to avoid harming people. Nor did it keep the money on hand to pay potential tort claims from the people it was harming. Instead, Perdue's officers and board of directors (that is, the Sacklers) approved dividends of billions of dollars to be paid to the company's shareholders (that is, again, the Sacklers). The plaintiffs in various lawsuits have alleged that the Sacklers knew that the profits were temporary and the bill would come due, so they purposefully got the money out of the company while the getting was good. More technically: it is alleged that Perdue's owners received assets that were transferred from Purdue with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors. One thing you absolutely are not allowed to do is use your company to rack up a bunch of debt or liability, take all the assets out of the company, and then declare bankruptcy and expect to get to keep the money. We call that "fraudulent transfer," and if a court finds that you did fraudulent transfers from your company to your personal bank account you will be ordered to pay that money back to the company (so it can use that money to pay back its creditors and other claimants). The company still exists, it's a distinct legal person (so not technically piercing the veil), you just took the company's money as if it were a profit when you knew full well the company couldn't afford to pay out profits. One big difference between the concepts is this: If Perdue's corporate veil were pierced, the Sacklers would be personally on the hook for all the harm their company caused -- they could lose their bank accounts, vacation homes, nice cars, artwork, everything, as if they themselves (rather than "Perdue") had been the ones going around knowingly fueling a drug addiction crisis. Whereas if they merely engaged in fraulent transfer of assets, the Sacklers are only on the hook to give back what they fraudulently took from the company during the period it can be proven that they knew of the looming liability -- limited to the statute of limitations, which I think is around 6 years. So all the money they made before that, and all the money they have from non-fraudulent sources, is safe from creditors.
voisin 2y ago
It’s pretty wild that everyone acknowledges that the Sacklers engaged in a “milking program” going from 15% to 70% distributions after the first lawsuits in order to strip the company of assets and then hide behind the company to shield liability. This alone should allow claimants to pierce the corporate veil and go after the family directly.
- nickburns 2y ago
  > allow claimants to pierce the corporate veil and go after the family directly. This decision is a win both for that cause, and also forestalling precedent that would allow future wrongdoing corporations from 'shielding the veil' so to speak through bankruptcy. A win-win indeed.
  - bumby 2y ago
    At least initially, I'm glad to see this verdict if it means such behavior can't hide behind the corporate veil. However, it's important to acknowledge it's not necessarily a win-win-win. By reading Justice Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion, this decision seems to delay opioid victims the settlement they previously won. >"As a result, opioid victims are now deprived of the substantial monetary recovery that they long fought for and finally secured after years of litigation...virtually all of the opioid victims and creditors in this case fervently support approval of Purdue’s bankruptcy reorganization plan." Time will tell if this ruling gives enough preventative pressure to future cases to make it worth the additional pain to the present claimants.
    - efitz 2y ago
      But now that the ruling potentially exposes the Sacklers directly, they have much more incentive to negotiate a new settlement. If the plaintiff's attorneys are clever, they will leverage this to come to a quick settlement of approximately the same amount, with the threat that delays will bring demands for higher amounts.
    - labcomputer 2y ago
      > By reading Justice Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion, this decision seems to delay opioid victims the settlement they previously won. The problem is that this sets an ugly precedent. The bankruptcy settlement is basically "I can make a deal with A that takes away your ability to sue B, even though I wasn't suing B and you are". It makes no sense. The dissenting opinion is the epitome of "fuck you, I got mine." Suppose we discover next year that one of the RNA covid vaccines causes cancer with 100% probability. The vaccine maker, on the hook for trillions of dollars of damages with no possible way to pay, declares bankruptcy (victims get approximately nothing). Elon Musk steps in and offers to contribute 20 billion dollars to help compensate the victims who would otherwise get nothing. All he asks is that the bankruptcy court dismiss all claims related to his pay package, stock manipulation and libel on twitter. The victims overwhelmingly approve the settlement and the judge oks it. After all, bankruptcy judges have wide discretion and $20 billion is better than $0. Is that ok? In my analogy, Elon Musk (and most of the people suing him) are not related to the vaccine maker (but there could be overlap among some of the plaintiffs and Musk could own some shares of the vaccine maker). But, technically, the same is true with Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family and plaintiffs. Yes, the Sacklers are more closely related to Purdue than Musk and the hypothetical vaccine company, but that's just a matter of degree. In the Purdue bankruptcy, the victims of Purdue voted (and the court agreed) to take the Sackler's money and in exchange prevent anyone at all in the United States from suing the Sacklers about anything at all related to opioids. Even people who are not eligible to be members of the Purdue bankruptcy settlement cannot sue the Sacklers! If the Sackler settlement was allowed to stand, it effectively allows billionaires to buy their way out of liability for unrelated things if they donate some money to sympathetic victims. All they would need to do is create some degree of nexus between themselves and the entity declaring bankruptcy, sufficient for a bankruptcy judge to ok the settlement.
iraqmtpizza 2y ago
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jmyeet 2y ago
The wild part is how the justices were split: Gorsuch wrote for the majority, joined by Thomas, Alito, Barrett and Jackson. You won't often see these 5 seeing eye to eye in a split decision. This ruling breaks my usual test that the conservative majority will nearly always side with corporate intersts because this decision definitely isn't pro-corporate. The settlement would essentially shield the Sacklers from all liability and allow them to keep the proceeds of their crimes while paying a fine over a long period of time essentially from future earnings on thse ill-gotten gains. The dissent seemed to say this was bad for 100,000 opioid victims. That's not a reason to legally shield the crooks who profited from their death and suffering. I'm shocked that Kagan and Sotomayor, in particular, went for that line of reasoning. In a just world, the Sacklers would die pennieless in a 6x8 cell. Fines are just the cost of doing business. Intentionally addicting hundreds of thousands (if not millions) to opioids for profit, knowingly, should lead the loss to both your freedom and every dollar you earned from that endeavour.
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago
  European here: the fact that "you guys" even know who your judges are, is amazing.
harry8 2y ago
Matt Levine at Bloomberg gives an excellent explanation of what happened, the ruling, why etc without telling you what you should think is the right thing or right outcome. His explanations from first principles covering ground you already know are just excellent. Worthwhile reading for anyone who has to explain detailed, complex & technical subject matter. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-27/purdue-s-bankruptcy-went-too-far https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-27/purdue...
- returningfory2 2y ago
  The truly awesome thing about Matt Levine is how in complicated situations like this he doesn't try to pick the "right" side but instead leans in to how both sides have good points of view. In today's newsletter he quotes the majority opinion and says it's reasonable, and then quotes the contradicting dissent and says that's reasonable too. And they both are! A really difficult case with really difficult trade offs.
- locallost 2y ago
  As a layman, I find the dissenting opinion strange -- for a judge. Sure it might be more pragmatic and beneficial for the victims of this particular case to take the deal. But a supreme court can't possibly cover all cases, so IMHO it must deal with the law on a higher more principled level. The argument that the bankruptcy court did ok in this case and should be allowed to do this in general is iffy because it fails to take into account various realities of life, e.g. corruption. Limitless authority is for me not a good idea, and I think the decision of the majority makes more sense. > A bankruptcy court’s powers are not limitless and do not endow it with the power to extinguish without their consent claims held by nondebtors (here, the opioid victims) against other nondebtors (here, the Sacklers). But again, this is my regular Joe view on the matter. And it's true that the majority of victims in this case might be in the end worse off, but the decisions of a supreme court are relevant for a long long time.
adambartlett 2y ago
nice
mindslight 2y ago
Did the Sacklers forget to renew their subscription to Clarence Thomas or something?

I recently watched these 3 episodes of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Highly recommended. Opioids III: The Sacklers: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCaIhfETsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaCaIhfETsM) Opioids II: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qCKR6wy94U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qCKR6wy94U) Opioids: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdPrQFjo2o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdPrQFjo2o)

ronnier 2y ago

> Purdue made billions from OxyContin, a widely available painkiller that fueled the opioid epidemic

7thaccount 2y ago
It's more complicated than that. They knew it was killing people and turning thousands (millions) into addicts and they kept pushing doctors to use it at all costs. I'd recommend the John Oliver special on it.
- hedora 2y ago
  They also designed it to be more addictive. The recommended dosage and timing causes the patients to repeatedly experience minor withdrawal during normal use, which is a standard technique for conditioning someone into being an addict. All of this is documented in emails that were presented as evidence in court.
  - elzbardico 2y ago
    They learned it from the tobacco industry probably.
    - ARandomerDude 2y ago
      Is there a recommended dosage and timing from the tobacco industry?
      - elzbardico 2y ago
        It was in jest. But part of the problem with nicotine that helps to lead to addiction is its short half-life. If you are a smoker you experience several episodes of abstinence throughout the day, so you lit just another one.
      - dns_snek 2y ago
        Yes - sort of. Many of the additives found in cigarettes are designed to increase the rate of absorption of nicotine. This gives you a distinct rush within seconds of consumption, as well as a more pronounced crash that triggers intense cravings. That's very different from the effects of (freebase?) nicotine typically found in e-cigarettes which is slower to absorb and doesn't have a noticeable crash.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    Designed it knowingly to be more addictive WHILE producing physician literature that denied or downplayed addiction risk.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Why are doctors so easy to manipulate? They learn about addiction in medical school. Why would they believe a pharmaceutical company saying "...oh but this opioid is not addictive..."
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - logicchains 2y ago
    >Why would they believe a pharmaceutical company saying "...oh but this opioid is not addictive..." Because the pharma company offered them direct or indirect benefits for doing so. Doctors are just as human and just as susceptible to financial incentive as anybody else, that's why for decades there were doctors advertising the health benefits of smoking.
  - LordKeren 2y ago
    It’s easy to overlook that OxyContin was very effective. Even a doctor acting in good faith was likely to prescribe the drug— because it worked well. It really did help people struggling with pain management. The downside, of course, was that Purdue pharma was knowingly misleading doctors on the addictiveness of the drug. Also the amount of doctors that were willing to turn a blind eye to the clear signs of addiction is very worrying.
    - radlad 2y ago
      > Also the amount of doctors that were willing to turn a blind eye to the clear signs of addiction is very worrying. No disagreement, but I think it's worth considering how stigmatized addiction is in our society. I expect many patients would hide any signs of addiction from their doctors - especially since it might result in losing their supply of OxyContin, or worse, their career.
      - LordKeren 2y ago
        Yes, whole heartedly agree. The social impact of addiction and the ostracism of those suffering with addiction has undoubtedly only made this situation worse. I was more leaning towards doctors/pharmacies that were operating as pill mills - I.e. the handful of regions in the Appalachias where there were more scripts for Oxy than there were people in the county
- sparklingmango 2y ago
  Additionally, I recommend the book Empire of Pain for an excellent deep dive into the Sackler family and how they essentially created the opioid epidemic. You'll be infuriated as you read it.
  - CaptainZapp 2y ago
    +1 An amazing read and I also highly recommend it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Pain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Pain
  - iamacyborg 2y ago
    Having read that, I still find it shocking when I see their names on various donor plaques in big British museums.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- tiffanyh 2y ago
  What responsibility does the FDA have in this? (genuinely curious, not trolling)

realce 2y ago

>The court on a 5-4 vote ruled that the bankruptcy court did not have the authority to release the Sackler family members from legal claims made by opioid victims. As part of the deal, the family, which controlled the company, had agreed to pay $6 billion that could be used to settle opioid-related claims, but only in return for a complete release from any liability in future cases. Is this actually a positive outcome or a kick-the-can?

cogman10 2y ago
Positive outcome. They earned hundreds of billions from their actions which resulted in the deaths of thousands. Giving them permanent immunity was insane.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  It also makes sense to me. If someone didn't join the class action, they should not be bound by its settlement, and should be free to pursue damage claims on their own.
- ben7799 2y ago
  Definitely a positive income. These people bear some of the responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. There is no way they should ever be immune from further punishments and get to live out the rest of their lives as billionaires.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- delichon 2y ago
  Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
  - ajdlinux 2y ago
    You mean John Roberts instead of Ketanji Brown Jackson.

roenxi 2y ago

[flagged]

BoredPositron 2y ago
Force? Edit: "Force to trust"? Because everyone answering didn't read ops comment.
- logicchains 2y ago
  If your boss tells you you'll lose your job if you don't have sex with him, and you quit to avoid that, would you disagree with the statement that you were forced to quit?
  - BoredPositron 2y ago
    No, words have specific meanings that should accurately reflect the nuances of the situation at hand.
    - Vt71fcAqt7 2y ago
      Force: >violence, compulsion, or constraint exerted upon or against a person or thing[0] Compell: >1. to drive or urge forcefully or irresistibly >2. to cause to do or occur by overwhelming pressure[1] [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/force https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/force [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compel https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/compel
      - BoredPositron 2y ago
        So? "Force to trust" like op wrote made absolutely no sense.
    - binary132 2y ago
      the choice to have sex with someone or be fired is not a legitimate choice and framing it as one is also illegitimate. do you have a better suggestion for a term you would prefer?

duxup 2y ago

Link to ruling: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-124_8nk0.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-124_8nk0.pdf

dataflow 2y ago

How is there such a big divide in the court on this? Is the law really this unclear on the matter?

throwup238 2y ago
IANAL but most contested Supreme Court decisions I've read (going all the way back to AP gov class) sounded like they could have reasonably been decided either way depending on who had control over the court. The law is ambiguous and complex enough that there's just so many logical ways to approach a decision and little in the way of prioritizing or disambiguating them. Whatever their bias, judges have lots of ways of reasoning themselves to their predetermined outcome. This is true up and down the courts but most judges are at least somewhat worried about their reputation and their record with appeals courts, which at least mitigates their biases but the SCOTUS is free to do whatever it wants. As much as each side likes to bloviate about originalism and activist judges, SCOTUS often decides at the whims of ideology and personal bias because the law gives them lots of room.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
rayiner 2y ago
Bankruptcy is a unique creature. It's created directly in the Constitution as a federal system. Bankruptcy is inherently "equitable," which means that judicial decisions are guided by case-by-case considerations of fairness rather than strict legal rules. Bankruptcy courts have wide latitude and discretion to basically do what makes sense in each context. Here, the majority overturned something the bankrutpcy code approved, because, in its view, the remedy of a non-consensual third-party release conflicted with the structure of the Bankruptcy Code. The dissent disagreed, pointing out there were no express prohibitions on the relief the bankruptcy court had granted, and explaining that, in their view, the bankruptcy court should have been given discretion to authorize such a release if ultimately it would make the creditors better off. Basically the majority was focused on the structure of the Code, while the dissent was focused on the practical fact that the creditors would probably get more money from the Sacklers this way than if they had pursued direct lawsuits against them.

psunavy03 2y ago

For those claiming the Supreme Court is a political institution, I'd like to note that this was indeed a 5-4 decision. But one with Justices in the majority who were appointed by Biden, Trump, Bush 43, and Bush 41, and in the minority who were appointed by Bush 43, Obama, and Trump. It was Jackson, Gorsuch, Barrett, Alito, and Thomas in the majority and Sotomayor, Kagan, Roberts, and Kavanaugh in the minority.

bdzr 2y ago
Most decisions are mixed or more one sided than following the standard "political lines", but those cases never get spoken about.
LordKeren 2y ago
Hmmm, I’m not sure pointing to singular rulings like this really demonstrates that the Supreme Court isn’t getting increasingly political.
- mardifoufs 2y ago
  Increasingly political compared to when? And I don't think it's a singular judgement. If anything, the "ideological split" types of decisions are rarer, so it's more accurate to say that a few decisions on hot political topics doesn't mean that the SCOTUS is increasingly political.
rob74 2y ago
I guess this is not a topic that is politically divisive, so the judges were free to vote as they saw fit. Which doesn't say anything about how they will vote on other topics, like abortion, environmental protection etc.
- rayiner 2y ago
  The justices don't vote on "abortion, environmental protection, etc." They vote on the legal vehicles that have been used to address those things. And views on those legal vehicles map onto judicial philosophies that have nothing to do with the substantive issues. To use an analogy: there's people who think operating systems should be microkernels, and people who think they should be monolithic kernels. Windows NT was created to be a microkernel. But around NT 4.0 they shoved the GUI into the kernel space. If you're on the "Supreme Court of Windows NT," how do you view that? One camp might say, "NT is supposed to be a microkernel, get that GUI out of there." Another might say, "yeah but here in the real world, customers demand a fast GUI so it's fine to cut corners." Constitutional law is basically that, except we're talking about cutting corners with the highest law in the land.

delichon 2y ago

Thank you. For my purpose as a reader it is editorial incompetence that the article neither provided that link, nor the name of the case to make it easy to lookup.

duxup 2y ago
For SCOTUS related news I always hit up SCOTUSblog: https://www.scotusblog.com/ https://www.scotusblog.com/ They do a good job of linking to or posting quality articles.
jcranmer 2y ago
At least it is for SCOTUS decisions to find the decision quickly (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinion/23 https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinion/23 has a list of all opinions from the current time, updated live as they are announced). It's really painful when you've got coverage of state court cases where you have neither the case name nor the court it was filed in nor the docket nor any document nor anything that would let you figure any of this out.
- duxup 2y ago
  Yeah SCOTUS is pretty good about putting their decisions out there. Sometimes too good at it ;)
- fock 2y ago
  as a non US-person who recently wanted to look at some cases: is there a free way to do this? Or do you have to sign up to the weird ePACER?
  - nickburns 2y ago
    You do not have to sign up for anything. SCOTUS opinions are freely-accessible public record.[0] [0] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/opinions.aspx https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/opinions.aspx
  - jcranmer 2y ago

photochemsyn 2y ago

Interestingly the same kinds of tactics used to push opiates on the general public are still being used to push amphetamine analogs - but the death rate from amphetamine addiction/overdose is much much lower (>1000X lower) than that from opiate addiction/overdose so it doesn't really hit the headlines, and arguably is not as much of a concern. From a libertarian point of view, mood- and mind-altering substance use should be the citizen's choice, but for this to not result in an epidemic of addiction, it would require a well-educated public who understands that whatever short-term apparent benefit a drug (including alcohol and nicotine and caffeine) delivers, there's always a tax that must be paid afterwards, and use must be kept below the addictive threshold, meaning if you start needing more of the drug to get the same effect, the only rational thing to do is to stop using the drug until your tolerance goes back to zero. This of couse goes against consumer society norms, where the concept of 'less is more' is almost a heresy.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
I guess I'm not sure what the point of the comparison is. If the death rate from opioid addiction were 1000x lower, I would happily bite the bullet and say Purdue did nothing wrong. Chronic pain is real and terrible - it would be great to have a solution where the downside risk is no worse than an Adderall dependency.
- photochemsyn 2y ago
  In my experience, people who use amphetamines (and cocaine) regularly start making very bad decisions, and heavy use leads to amphetamine psychosis. A very public example of this was the behavior of the SBF / FTX / Alameda operation, where by several accounts regular amphetamine use was the norm. That doesn't mean it should be illegal, but I'd avoid associating with anyone I knew had an amphetamine or cocaine dependency.
AlexandrB 2y ago
The problem with mind altering substances is they can short circuit your rational thinking. So you can start with the most well-considered decision process ever and still end up addicted. In fact, this doesn't even require a substance. Gambling is plenty addictive to many. There's a kind of fallacy to thinking that sufficient education can counter biological human desires and impulses in all cases.

rahimnathwani 2y ago

The Sacklers want to have their cake and eat it. They want both: - To avoid filing for bankruptcy, and - For a bankruptcy settlement to release them from additional liability.

nickff 2y ago
Are you talking about the Sacklers as individuals, a family unit, or in their capacity as decision-makers for Purdue? There seem to be a relatively complex set of incentives and options in each of these capacities.
NickC25 2y ago
And they'll get it - they stashed a lot of their gains overseas, and they'll keep those gains while continuing to live a lavish life amongst the elites of the world. I lost a very close friend to opoid addiction, and Purdue was based one town over from where I grew up. I hope the entire Sackler family gets fined and taxed to the point of genuine destitute poverty, and then some. Genuine scum.
- jandrese 2y ago
  I think this is where the settlement went wrong. The Sacklers were going to remain billionaires after the $6B payout. In all real respects they were going to feel no pain. They already have way more money than any of them could hope to spend in their remaining years, and that really rubbed people the wrong way. With the immunity removed they will at least spend some of their retirement in court room after court room instead of sipping drinks on the deck of one of their many megayachts. It sucks for the victims who are realistically not going to get any help before they die, but it does send a message that you can't kill thousands (probably millions) and get off scot free.

vanderZwan 2y ago

> WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday blew up the massive bankruptcy reorganization of opioid maker Purdue Pharma, finding that the settlement inappropriately included legal protections for the Sackler family, meaning that billions of dollars secured for victims is now threatened. Does anyone find it strange that this is described as a loss for the victims?

wtallis 2y ago
"is now threatened" is not characterizing this as a loss for the victims. It's characterizing this as opening up the possibility of a loss for the victims, relative to what had been settled. That characterization seems accurate and relevant. (This ruling also brings a certainty of delay for compensation, since negotiations for a settlement have to start anew, and with lower chances of success.)
ahartmetz 2y ago
> Does anyone find it strange that this is described as a loss for the victims? Pay attention to the ads appearing on NBC, I guess... (cf. Manufacturing Consent)
adastra22 2y ago
Well, it is. The victims had a settlement agreement worth billions of dollars, which the Sackler family was going to willingly provide in exchange for legal protections. Now that legal protections are off the table, it is very unlikely that any new settlement will be as generous, and in fact quite unlikely that any settlement will be achieved at all.
- qarl 2y ago
  But also very likely that the case will go to court and the damages will be substantially higher.
  - micromacrofoot 2y ago
    Not really, it will be played out in a number of separate cases and each case is in a weaker position separately simply due to scale and resources. The Sacklers have an estimated $1bn liquid available to fight these things. The $6bn ruling was significant and not an amazing outcome for either side (so, a compromise). Additionally most of the Sacklers are well into old age, so they'll probably die before losing $6bn.

zoklet-enjoyer 2y ago

I blame the doctors too. I was a teen in the early/mid 2000s and even I knew about the addictiveness of oxycodone. It wasn't called hillbilly heroin for nothing.

inasio 2y ago

Matt Levine has covered this several times in the past, worth reading. From memory, the Purdue family had put away their money in legally sheltered arrangements, so even an unfavorable decision (to the Sacklers) would likely not be able to claw back much money. The previous deal traded the risk of trial for a perceived as decent compensation. My read is that the majority in the supreme court disagreed that you can always financial-engineer your way out of trials

legitster 2y ago
They were (apparently) sheltering money specifically to pay for personal legal damages, and they voluntarily offered it back during the bankruptcy proceedings in exchange for giving up their liability. The court ruling is not about the legality of their financial shenanigans, but the authority of the bankruptcy court on deciding such matters.
lupusreal 2y ago
Lawyers are fixated on the money for obvious reasons, but the money will never really fix what the Sacklers did (particularly for the many victims who are now dead.) Restitution is largely a farce and we should be focusing on retribution.
- DANmode 2y ago
  Removing the profitability angle mildly dissuades this sort of behavior in the future.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    I'm all for rendering the Sacklers paupers. Whether that money is given to surviving victims or piled up and burned matters less.
- dylan604 2y ago
  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

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legitster 2y ago

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 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 more money immediately. With this ruling, the Sacklers are personally legally liable again - which may make you or I more happy, but this means that victims have to pursue a much harder and more expensive set of lawsuits to get money from the Sackler family. It also means the victims of the deal don't get a voice in the proceedings, and it may also make future payouts and bankruptcies harder if there is no reason to cooperate with the state.

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nox101 2y ago
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 the family trying to spin.
- LordKeren 2y ago
  It’s harder because it requires piercing the veil of protection of an LLC, a legal construct that is explicitly designed to limit liabilities. There are simply more legal hurdles to this. Though I do agree with the conclusion that the bankruptcy court should not be able to grant immunity to the Sackler family. It feels deeply, deeply immoral
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > harder because it requires piercing the veil of protection of an LLC Source? It’s harder because they’re indemnified by Purdue, and their individual liability is far from established. (The opinion and dissent both refer to a monolithic “Sacklers,” but they’re individuals and trusts and whatever.)

ein0p 2y ago

There will be people like Sacklers until we start putting them away and throwing away the key. We do need to put rich people in jail at least every now and again, if for no other reason than to demonstrate we're not a banana republic.

chasil 2y ago
Unfortunately, this is no longer possible to a great extent. "Purdue flourished under brothers Mortimer and Raymond Sackler, who died in 2010 and 2017, respectively."
- ein0p 2y ago
  I’m sure it was a lot more than just two people
nickff 2y ago
>"We do need to put rich people in jail at least every now and again, if for no other reason than to demonstrate we're not a banana republic." And to that end, the USA must demonstrate that it's totalitarian and abuses people's rights?
- mcmcmc 2y ago
  Is rule of law totalitarian? Wealth is not be a get out of jail free card, and imprisonment is not inherently an abuse of rights. While the US prison industrial complex is vile and abusive, the cushy white collar prisons aren’t where those abuses are happening.
- squidbeak 2y ago
  I think the poster means those rich who have committed offences, but enjoy softer penalities thanks to their wealth.
- notoriousdel 2y ago
  [flagged]

legitster 2y ago

I find the Supreme court decisions to be fascinating reads and overall much more interesting and complicated than most news services make them out to be.

shadowgovt 2y ago
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 the one you believe to be true!).
- voidfunc 2y ago
  Lol, they're also quite ideological. Don't fall for the trap that these people are enlightened philosophers. They have a lot of flaws in their own right. Ask good lawyers about their thoughts on SCOTUS Justices, it's not always peachy.
  - legitster 2y ago
    Even if they are ideological, they are not usually political hacks (cough Thomas cough). Honestly though, for as much flak as this current court gets, there is at least a certain consistency where they at least mostly stick to arguments about the letter of the law. In previous courts you would see some truly wild written arguments about how, like, a specific word in the Commerce Clause or whatever could mean whatever you wanted it to.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  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)

rootusrootus 2y ago

I could see shielding from future civil liability as an option, but only after a true bankruptcy has occurred. Liquidate everything, and by that I mean everything, and then you can move on with your life. Definitely no shielding money in offshore accounts. If you're not willing to do that ... well, see you in court. Over and over, because every individual you hurt should have a chance to come at you with a liability claim.

chasil 2y ago
One problem of which I was unaware is that the Sackler family has largely fled the United States. Pursuing their assets introduces vast complexities of international law. "In a brief filed on behalf of the relatives of Mortimer Sackler, most of whom are based overseas, lawyers warned of “significant litigation costs and risks” in seeking to enforce any foreign court judgments against the family if the settlement were thrown out."
- lycopodiopsida 2y ago
  The US are proud of getting some terrorist in the middle of Pakistan or putting pressure on whistleblowers internationally but when big money is involved getting a criminal scumbag responsible for ~1m deaths is suddenly a huge problem.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    Listen, we can't spend like we did going after Julian Assange on this. It's just business people doing business.
    - wmf 2y ago
      El Chapo is crying.
      - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
        El Chapo was free to form a corporation and then create an indemnification agreement between that company and himself. That he chose not to is on him.

qarl 2y ago

Seems like the justices missed a great opportunity here to rule in favor of the settlement and then receive $$$$$$ next year as a thank you gift. Because buying government officials is now entirely legal. https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scope-of-anti-bribery-law/ https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-limits-scop...

petesergeant 2y ago

> Justices Kavanaugh, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Roberts disagreed Fascinating split

tunesmith 2y ago
Strong language, too, against the majority that includes Jackson ("Brown Jackson"?).

jpalawaga 2y ago

This is the only reasonable outcome... you can't deny some people justice just because other people think it's fine. The sacklers have done immeasurable damage to the country. All of their wealth should be removed. Their foundation should be dismantled and used to fund damage and mental health services for addicts of the opioid crisis that they went on to create. And perhaps some of the individual pushers/purveyors of the drugs, too.

lokar 2y ago
More narrowly, a judge can’t impose an outcome or settlement on someone where the law does not allow for it.
petesergeant 2y ago
Yes, although in theory the justices are ruling on what the law means, rather than ruling on what they think it should mean for justice to be served.
robnado 2y ago
Agreed, they should be made an example of. Everyone involved in the fraud of getting this medication approved and then marketed to millions of people should face a fair trial and should be made an example of if found guilty. There is no reason that this medication should have been approved or marketed the way it was, especially considering what the medical community already knew about opioids and the harm they can cause.
- polotics 2y ago
  Considering the three strikes rule and other extremely punitive judgement against drug offenders, how are the sacklers still not in solitary?
- ensignavenger 2y ago
  The immunity deal on the table here was for civil litigation, not criminal trials. The Sackler family can still declare bankruptcy on their own, they just can't use the bankruptcy of their company to extend protection to themselves- which does make sense. But nothing that was proposed would have shielded them from criminal prosecution.

CSMastermind 2y ago

Discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40810767 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40810767

dang 2y ago
(we merged that thread hither)

esd_g0d 2y ago

What share of the guild do the medical providers that prescribed the opioids to their patients have? There would be no opioid crisis if none were willing to do it.

legitster 2y ago
Scott Alexander had a very interesting writeup about his experiences: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudoaddiction/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/09/16/against-against-pseudo...
- nickff 2y ago
  I just read it (because of your link), and commend it to other people in this thread; quite a well-described and interesting position.
- esd_g0d 2y ago
  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.
  - loeg 2y ago
    Wisdom teeth extraction is far from trivial and opioids are a very reasonable prescription for pain from that surgery.
    - esd_g0d 2y ago
      Literally does not happen in two countries that I know of, and I bet in many countries of the world (developed ones even).
    - saint_fiasco 2y ago
      Objectively, opioids are prescribed much less often outside the US. Subjectively, I got four wisdom teeth extracted in two sessions of two extractions each. Both times I only needed generic acetaminophen to manage the pain. Perhaps an US surgeon have insisted on doing it all in one session, in which case I would have found the pain and discomfort intolerable and opioids would have made more sense. In any case, they should probably figure out why their patients are in more pain than the patients of foreign surgeons and fix that. It could be something silly like them being less gentle during surgery because they are used to their patients being on opioids.

xeckr 2y ago

I don't understand the hatred directed at the Sacklers. Oxycodone is, just like all other opiates, highly effective at suppressing pain, potentially addictive, and deadly in large enough doses. This has been common medical knowledge for millennia. Why do so many people believe that they are responsible for overdose deaths?

throwway120385 2y ago
Because they marketed an opioid as an "extended release" form when they knew from their own internal studies that the pain relief only lasted the standard 6 hours instead of the 8 hours that were claimed. As a result, people would find themselves taking more to stay on top of their symptoms and the resulting ramp in use would leave people debilitated.
- lokar 2y ago
  It was also pitched as abuse resistant (something about it being hard to grind up the pills), which they also knew to be untrue.
esd_g0d 2y ago
Exactly. It took the collaboration of many different people, all of which also profited from it, to bring about the opioid crisis.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y ago
  The vendor who sells many different things seems to be at least a bit less culpable than the provider who sells just their thing while lying about certain effects of it. Yes, we can examine how we got into this situation where doctors take drug advice from the people who make the drugs but the people who lied for profit deserve the lion's share of the criticism.
  - esd_g0d 2y ago
    In practice, even many of the general public knew that what the vendor was selling was addictive and dangerous -- there are some reports even in this thread. So it's hard for the vendor to claim ignorance, even more so when often they also stood to profit from the lie (repeat customers).

louwrentius 2y ago

Without proper context, it’s not clear to me if this is good or bad. It bad for the victims because there’s no settlement. It’s good for justice as people with a ton of money shouldn’t be above the law.

lokar 2y ago
It’s good if you think judges should follow the law more or less as written by congress. The whole concept of a 3rd party release in bankruptcy is simply not in the law. Congress could add it, but they have not.

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dang 2y ago

I changed the URL from https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/06/opioid-settlement-toppled-as-scotus-rejects-sacklers-immunity-in-5-4-ruling/ 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.

datadrivenangel 2y ago
Thanks Dang!
strathmeyer 2y ago
Seems impossible to read Washington Post articles without opening them in incognito mode.
- dang 2y ago
  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/item?id=10178989, https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html 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.
rc_mob 2y ago
i vote link to the ruling itself
- dang 2y ago
  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...

shadowgovt 2y ago

Court skipped an opportunity to quote Franklin, since "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" actually referred to a legislature entertaining a very similar Faustian bargain (i.e. value now in exchange for perpetual promise to remove responsibility from a family). ... but probably the correct choice, as that was a legislative, not judicial, circumstance and their decision in the time has no bearing on jurisprudence.

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shawndrost 2y ago

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-is. Which is, I think, the conclusion from this settlement. If this is you, can you help me understand? Do you think there is/was a realistic way to prescribe opioids routinely and safely?

legitster 2y ago
The settlement was not at all about Purdue operating as is. Purdue was going to be turned into a legal fund and treatment provider as part of the settlement agreement.
- shawndrost 2y ago
  Under the bankruptcy settlement, Purdue will continue to sell opioids. The ownership will change (profits will be used to fund the causes you listed) but the operations will not. Right?
  - legitster 2y ago
    You know I can't actually find a lot of details about what the "new" Purdue was supposed to operate like - my understanding was that it was going to turn into a receivership under the court. But that's kind of the weirdness of all of this - at no point was OxyContin itself banned or been made illegal.
yostrovs 2y ago
I understand there's fraud and bribes and such, but it seems to me that in the end it is doctors and the medical system, with a bit of help from government regulators, that decide prescriptions, dosages, limitations and such. Purdue could have been making pure poison, but they don't prescribe anything.

janalsncm 2y ago

Pound for pound, the Sacklers probably did more damage to America than any other drug dealers in history. More damage than any serial killer or mass shooter. In my mind they should be considered public enemies 1 through N. I sincerely hope they face civil and criminal liabilities for what they’ve done.

janice1999 2y ago
You're really underselling it if anything. Over a million Americans have died so far in the opioid epidemic. That more than any of their wars, including their civil war.
- mktemp-d 2y ago
  A good book to read regarding this topic is "Death in Mud Lick" by Eric Eyre who was a reporter for a local newspaper in WV during the early discovery phase of the epidemic. The book details the methods used by the drug companies to pedal these drugs into small communities, the tragic victims, and lastly the refusal of drug suppliers to admit any wrong doing. There's also a slight dose (no pun intended) of WV AG's sheer incompetence on the matter due to donations and gifts by said drug suppliers. Super depressing book, but great read nonetheless.
  - checkyoursudo 2y ago
    *peddle
    - disillusioned 2y ago
      Fun fact: early opioid deliveries were actually, in fact, almost exclusively done by bicycle!
      - janalsncm 2y ago
        If they used those penny farthing bicycles I’m sure they needed quite a few painkillers.

farceSpherule 2y ago

Fraudulent Transfer... From Reddit... Piercing the corporate veil would mean disregarding the corporate form entirely. It usually comes up when the owner-manager of a company fails to distinguish the corporation as a separate entity with its own purpose and finances, using the company as a personal piggie bank or otherwise going about life as usual and not going through the motions required of corporations under the law. What plaintiffs have alleged against the Sacklers is different, and specific to bankruptcy. Perdue is out of money and is bankrupt, mostly because it caused billions of dollars of damages to hundreds of thousands of people and to the states (which now have to clean up the opioid mess). But not that long before it went bankrupt, it was swimming in money. Perdue didn't use those profits to avoid harming people. Nor did it keep the money on hand to pay potential tort claims from the people it was harming. Instead, Perdue's officers and board of directors (that is, the Sacklers) approved dividends of billions of dollars to be paid to the company's shareholders (that is, again, the Sacklers). The plaintiffs in various lawsuits have alleged that the Sacklers knew that the profits were temporary and the bill would come due, so they purposefully got the money out of the company while the getting was good. More technically: it is alleged that Perdue's owners received assets that were transferred from Purdue with actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors. One thing you absolutely are not allowed to do is use your company to rack up a bunch of debt or liability, take all the assets out of the company, and then declare bankruptcy and expect to get to keep the money. We call that "fraudulent transfer," and if a court finds that you did fraudulent transfers from your company to your personal bank account you will be ordered to pay that money back to the company (so it can use that money to pay back its creditors and other claimants). The company still exists, it's a distinct legal person (so not technically piercing the veil), you just took the company's money as if it were a profit when you knew full well the company couldn't afford to pay out profits. One big difference between the concepts is this: If Perdue's corporate veil were pierced, the Sacklers would be personally on the hook for all the harm their company caused -- they could lose their bank accounts, vacation homes, nice cars, artwork, everything, as if they themselves (rather than "Perdue") had been the ones going around knowingly fueling a drug addiction crisis. Whereas if they merely engaged in fraulent transfer of assets, the Sacklers are only on the hook to give back what they fraudulently took from the company during the period it can be proven that they knew of the looming liability -- limited to the statute of limitations, which I think is around 6 years. So all the money they made before that, and all the money they have from non-fraudulent sources, is safe from creditors.

voisin 2y ago

It’s pretty wild that everyone acknowledges that the Sacklers engaged in a “milking program” going from 15% to 70% distributions after the first lawsuits in order to strip the company of assets and then hide behind the company to shield liability. This alone should allow claimants to pierce the corporate veil and go after the family directly.

nickburns 2y ago
> allow claimants to pierce the corporate veil and go after the family directly. This decision is a win both for that cause, and also forestalling precedent that would allow future wrongdoing corporations from 'shielding the veil' so to speak through bankruptcy. A win-win indeed.
- bumby 2y ago
  At least initially, I'm glad to see this verdict if it means such behavior can't hide behind the corporate veil. However, it's important to acknowledge it's not necessarily a win-win-win. By reading Justice Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion, this decision seems to delay opioid victims the settlement they previously won. >"As a result, opioid victims are now deprived of the substantial monetary recovery that they long fought for and finally secured after years of litigation...virtually all of the opioid victims and creditors in this case fervently support approval of Purdue’s bankruptcy reorganization plan." Time will tell if this ruling gives enough preventative pressure to future cases to make it worth the additional pain to the present claimants.
  - efitz 2y ago
    But now that the ruling potentially exposes the Sacklers directly, they have much more incentive to negotiate a new settlement. If the plaintiff's attorneys are clever, they will leverage this to come to a quick settlement of approximately the same amount, with the threat that delays will bring demands for higher amounts.
  - labcomputer 2y ago
    > By reading Justice Kavanaugh's dissenting opinion, this decision seems to delay opioid victims the settlement they previously won. The problem is that this sets an ugly precedent. The bankruptcy settlement is basically "I can make a deal with A that takes away your ability to sue B, even though I wasn't suing B and you are". It makes no sense. The dissenting opinion is the epitome of "fuck you, I got mine." Suppose we discover next year that one of the RNA covid vaccines causes cancer with 100% probability. The vaccine maker, on the hook for trillions of dollars of damages with no possible way to pay, declares bankruptcy (victims get approximately nothing). Elon Musk steps in and offers to contribute 20 billion dollars to help compensate the victims who would otherwise get nothing. All he asks is that the bankruptcy court dismiss all claims related to his pay package, stock manipulation and libel on twitter. The victims overwhelmingly approve the settlement and the judge oks it. After all, bankruptcy judges have wide discretion and $20 billion is better than $0. Is that ok? In my analogy, Elon Musk (and most of the people suing him) are not related to the vaccine maker (but there could be overlap among some of the plaintiffs and Musk could own some shares of the vaccine maker). But, technically, the same is true with Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family and plaintiffs. Yes, the Sacklers are more closely related to Purdue than Musk and the hypothetical vaccine company, but that's just a matter of degree. In the Purdue bankruptcy, the victims of Purdue voted (and the court agreed) to take the Sackler's money and in exchange prevent anyone at all in the United States from suing the Sacklers about anything at all related to opioids. Even people who are not eligible to be members of the Purdue bankruptcy settlement cannot sue the Sacklers! If the Sackler settlement was allowed to stand, it effectively allows billionaires to buy their way out of liability for unrelated things if they donate some money to sympathetic victims. All they would need to do is create some degree of nexus between themselves and the entity declaring bankruptcy, sufficient for a bankruptcy judge to ok the settlement.

iraqmtpizza 2y ago

[dead]

jmyeet 2y ago

The wild part is how the justices were split: Gorsuch wrote for the majority, joined by Thomas, Alito, Barrett and Jackson. You won't often see these 5 seeing eye to eye in a split decision. This ruling breaks my usual test that the conservative majority will nearly always side with corporate intersts because this decision definitely isn't pro-corporate. The settlement would essentially shield the Sacklers from all liability and allow them to keep the proceeds of their crimes while paying a fine over a long period of time essentially from future earnings on thse ill-gotten gains. The dissent seemed to say this was bad for 100,000 opioid victims. That's not a reason to legally shield the crooks who profited from their death and suffering. I'm shocked that Kagan and Sotomayor, in particular, went for that line of reasoning. In a just world, the Sacklers would die pennieless in a 6x8 cell. Fines are just the cost of doing business. Intentionally addicting hundreds of thousands (if not millions) to opioids for profit, knowingly, should lead the loss to both your freedom and every dollar you earned from that endeavour.

Ylpertnodi 2y ago
European here: the fact that "you guys" even know who your judges are, is amazing.

harry8 2y ago

Matt Levine at Bloomberg gives an excellent explanation of what happened, the ruling, why etc without telling you what you should think is the right thing or right outcome. His explanations from first principles covering ground you already know are just excellent. Worthwhile reading for anyone who has to explain detailed, complex & technical subject matter. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-27/purdue-s-bankruptcy-went-too-far https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-06-27/purdue...

returningfory2 2y ago
The truly awesome thing about Matt Levine is how in complicated situations like this he doesn't try to pick the "right" side but instead leans in to how both sides have good points of view. In today's newsletter he quotes the majority opinion and says it's reasonable, and then quotes the contradicting dissent and says that's reasonable too. And they both are! A really difficult case with really difficult trade offs.
locallost 2y ago
As a layman, I find the dissenting opinion strange -- for a judge. Sure it might be more pragmatic and beneficial for the victims of this particular case to take the deal. But a supreme court can't possibly cover all cases, so IMHO it must deal with the law on a higher more principled level. The argument that the bankruptcy court did ok in this case and should be allowed to do this in general is iffy because it fails to take into account various realities of life, e.g. corruption. Limitless authority is for me not a good idea, and I think the decision of the majority makes more sense. > A bankruptcy court’s powers are not limitless and do not endow it with the power to extinguish without their consent claims held by nondebtors (here, the opioid victims) against other nondebtors (here, the Sacklers). But again, this is my regular Joe view on the matter. And it's true that the majority of victims in this case might be in the end worse off, but the decisions of a supreme court are relevant for a long long time.

adambartlett 2y ago

nice

mindslight 2y ago

Did the Sacklers forget to renew their subscription to Clarence Thomas or something?