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Seems an extremely soft ball approach: • Under the deal, Boeing agreed to pay a $243.6 million fine and for an third-party monitor to be installed to monitor t

Seems an extremely soft ball approach: • Under the deal, Boeing agreed to pay a $243.6 million fine and for an third-party monitor to be installed to monitor the company’s compliance. ~$240M seems pretty low for an industry where billions are commonly thrown about. • The deal spares Boeing from a trial just as the planemaker is trying to turn a corner in its safety and manufacturing crises. Sparing them from a trial means no further discovery/uncovering of other illegal shit they've been up to meanwhile?

dvhh 2y ago
I think someone else was fined 355~450 millions for fraud recently
- cootsnuck 2y ago
  If you scam the powers that be out of some real money (or just slightly expose their financial incompetence) that's when they suddenly know how how to hold individuals responsible. Pharma bro, Elizabeth Holmes, Delvey, SBF, etc. The system views individual lives as less important than the confidence / stability / illusion of power of the holy market and those it is meant to benefit.
BartjeD 2y ago
For spilling a hot coffee cup you get $ 2.7 million worth of punitive damages. But for killing more than 200 people and trying to hide the evidence, we'll charge you 200 million and call it a day. That's less per person than the price of a hot-coffee spill.
- chakintosh 2y ago
  > For spilling a hot coffee cup you get $ 2.7 million worth of punitive damages. What's the context here?
  - COGlory 2y ago
    Not OP, but I'm guessing this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Rest...
  - razakel 2y ago
    A woman spilled McDonald's coffee on herself, fusing her labia together and receiving third-degree burns. She needed skin grafts. McDonald's knew that their coffee was dangerously hot and had been repeatedly warned about it, so the jury awarded punitive damages.
    - lupusreal 2y ago
      FYI their coffee is still just as hot, but they changed their cups.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - darby_nine 2y ago
        > FYI their coffee is still just as hot, but they changed their cups. This doesn't even make sense—water that hot destroys the flavor of the coffee. Why do they not just make and serve the coffee at a temperature people actually expect? Is it so hard to not be an asshole to your customers?
        lupusreal 2y ago
        I believe the general consensus is that if they served the coffee cooler, by the time take-out customers got around to drinking it, it would be cold. Erring on the side of too hot maximizes customer satisfaction because the number of customers who would be upset at cold coffee is greater than the number of customers, buying coffee at McDonalds, who have sophisticated coffee tastes. Anyway, Starbucks also serves their coffee about as hot as McDonalds. Turns out, coffee hot enough to cause horrific injury is rather common.
- justinclift 2y ago
  Bulk discount. :(
  - temporarely 2y ago
    Bulk MIC discount.
- gruez 2y ago
  >For spilling a hot coffee cup you get $ 2.7 million worth of punitive damages Unless you're talking about a different case the actual amount was way less than that. >The trial judge reduced the punitive damages to three times the amount of the compensatory damages, totalling $640,000. The parties settled for a confidential amount before an appeal was decided. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau... More to the point, it's the difference between a jury trial where jurors are likely to award high amounts from a unsympathetic defendant (a big faceless multinational) to a sympathetic plaintiff (79 year old women), and a settlement (presumably the government didn't think they had a strong case so they didn't take to trial).
- darby_nine 2y ago
  > For spilling a hot coffee cup you get $ 2.7 million worth of punitive damages Dude it literally melted her labia together. She deserved that 2.7 million and only got a small portion of it.
  - mrguyorama 2y ago
    Nevermind that she only asked McDonalds to cover like five figures worth of medical bills, which they rejected. The JURY selected that figure, explicitly as a fuck you to the corporation that had a documented history of giving people coffee hotter than industry recommendations for safety, people getting really hurt from that coffee, and McDonalds sweeping those instances under the rug without making any changes to their coffee temperature. Now, instead it is a definitive PR win, with an entire generation of entitled asshole business owners swearing up and down that we need "Tort reform" because "a lady spilled coffee on herself and got $2.7 million", which was explicitly caused by a megacorp going out of their way to be dangerous.
- tomp 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - malfist 2y ago
    > there were no victims That is patently untrue. Even if you put aside that the law doesn't require a victim (see speeding tickets, DUIs, etc), the banks would have charged a higher interest for a riskier loan. Trump lied about his finances to make the loan risk seem lower and get a lower interest rate (or even the loan itself). The banks are a direct victim because they were cheated out of the interest rates they would have charged to reflect the higher risk they were taking on.
- sitkack 2y ago
  Please learn the specifics of the case before regurgitating this low effort trope.
- carabiner 2y ago
  What, do you think, would be an appropriate damage amount for the coffee spill that caused third-degree burns? Something much less than this?
janice1999 2y ago
It's even softer when you dig into the details. > third-party monitor For just three years. Lawyers for the victims said yesterday Boeing would select the monitor the DOJ would appoint. I hope this is no longer the case but can't find confirmation. If so, it's insane. Self-certification was a major source of corruption and rot in Boring. https://www.newsweek.com/boeing-pleads-guilty-fraud-sweetheart-plea-deal-1921605 https://www.newsweek.com/boeing-pleads-guilty-fraud-sweethea...
- malfist 2y ago
  Weren't they already obligated to do this as part of a previous plea deal and it didn't do anything to prevent this case? When you or I commit a crime during probation that was the same type of crime that lead to probation in the first place, we get a much much harsher sentence the second time around. For boeing, it seems this plea deal would just be "probation a second time"
- banish-m4 2y ago
  It's performative BS tantamount to their "self-regulation". Regulatory capture and influence capture is so complete, they can and are getting away with murder.
underseacables 2y ago
For the wealthy, it's always just pay a fine. The financial crisis is a great example. Wealthy CEOs rarely go to jail.
- account42 2y ago
  And often enough a fine smaller than the total profit from the illicit activity - so it's just a cost of doing business.
- banish-m4 2y ago
  Too big to jail. In Boeing's case, they're also a "strategic defense contractor" making bombs, missile, fighters, bombers, and such besides airliners the flying public uses. They are a big chunk of the military-industrial complex phenomenon Truman warned about.
Havoc 2y ago
> Sparing them from a trial means no further discovery/uncovering of other illegal shit It’ll be uncovered. Just via they “fk it we’ll do it live” in air method
nullindividual 2y ago
There must be some standard calculation going into that number. US law forbids proportional fines (i.e., scaling with income).
- anticensor 2y ago
  Not really, they are allowed as long as they have an upper and lower limit in absolute amounts.
- banish-m4 2y ago
  The medical industry uses QALY.
banish-m4 2y ago
Obama was their pitchman for a while while POTUS. He even directed the DoJ to "announce" premature and incorrect conclusions, overstepping the NTSB's investigation in the Jamaican 737 non-MAX NG crash. It seems Boeing is getting another sweetheart deal because they have lobbyists and powerful allies in DC who can make the deaths of hundreds of people not matter.

dvhh 2y ago

I think someone else was fined 355~450 millions for fraud recently

cootsnuck 2y ago
If you scam the powers that be out of some real money (or just slightly expose their financial incompetence) that's when they suddenly know how how to hold individuals responsible. Pharma bro, Elizabeth Holmes, Delvey, SBF, etc. The system views individual lives as less important than the confidence / stability / illusion of power of the holy market and those it is meant to benefit.

BartjeD 2y ago

For spilling a hot coffee cup you get $ 2.7 million worth of punitive damages. But for killing more than 200 people and trying to hide the evidence, we'll charge you 200 million and call it a day. That's less per person than the price of a hot-coffee spill.

chakintosh 2y ago
> For spilling a hot coffee cup you get $ 2.7 million worth of punitive damages. What's the context here?
- COGlory 2y ago
  Not OP, but I'm guessing this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Rest...
- razakel 2y ago
  A woman spilled McDonald's coffee on herself, fusing her labia together and receiving third-degree burns. She needed skin grafts. McDonald's knew that their coffee was dangerously hot and had been repeatedly warned about it, so the jury awarded punitive damages.
  - lupusreal 2y ago
    FYI their coffee is still just as hot, but they changed their cups.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - darby_nine 2y ago
      > FYI their coffee is still just as hot, but they changed their cups. This doesn't even make sense—water that hot destroys the flavor of the coffee. Why do they not just make and serve the coffee at a temperature people actually expect? Is it so hard to not be an asshole to your customers?
      - lupusreal 2y ago
        I believe the general consensus is that if they served the coffee cooler, by the time take-out customers got around to drinking it, it would be cold. Erring on the side of too hot maximizes customer satisfaction because the number of customers who would be upset at cold coffee is greater than the number of customers, buying coffee at McDonalds, who have sophisticated coffee tastes. Anyway, Starbucks also serves their coffee about as hot as McDonalds. Turns out, coffee hot enough to cause horrific injury is rather common.
justinclift 2y ago
Bulk discount. :(
- temporarely 2y ago
  Bulk MIC discount.
gruez 2y ago
>For spilling a hot coffee cup you get $ 2.7 million worth of punitive damages Unless you're talking about a different case the actual amount was way less than that. >The trial judge reduced the punitive damages to three times the amount of the compensatory damages, totalling $640,000. The parties settled for a confidential amount before an appeal was decided. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaurants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restau... More to the point, it's the difference between a jury trial where jurors are likely to award high amounts from a unsympathetic defendant (a big faceless multinational) to a sympathetic plaintiff (79 year old women), and a settlement (presumably the government didn't think they had a strong case so they didn't take to trial).
darby_nine 2y ago
> For spilling a hot coffee cup you get $ 2.7 million worth of punitive damages Dude it literally melted her labia together. She deserved that 2.7 million and only got a small portion of it.
- mrguyorama 2y ago
  Nevermind that she only asked McDonalds to cover like five figures worth of medical bills, which they rejected. The JURY selected that figure, explicitly as a fuck you to the corporation that had a documented history of giving people coffee hotter than industry recommendations for safety, people getting really hurt from that coffee, and McDonalds sweeping those instances under the rug without making any changes to their coffee temperature. Now, instead it is a definitive PR win, with an entire generation of entitled asshole business owners swearing up and down that we need "Tort reform" because "a lady spilled coffee on herself and got $2.7 million", which was explicitly caused by a megacorp going out of their way to be dangerous.
tomp 2y ago
[flagged]
- malfist 2y ago
  > there were no victims That is patently untrue. Even if you put aside that the law doesn't require a victim (see speeding tickets, DUIs, etc), the banks would have charged a higher interest for a riskier loan. Trump lied about his finances to make the loan risk seem lower and get a lower interest rate (or even the loan itself). The banks are a direct victim because they were cheated out of the interest rates they would have charged to reflect the higher risk they were taking on.
sitkack 2y ago
Please learn the specifics of the case before regurgitating this low effort trope.
carabiner 2y ago
What, do you think, would be an appropriate damage amount for the coffee spill that caused third-degree burns? Something much less than this?

janice1999 2y ago

It's even softer when you dig into the details. > third-party monitor For just three years. Lawyers for the victims said yesterday Boeing would select the monitor the DOJ would appoint. I hope this is no longer the case but can't find confirmation. If so, it's insane. Self-certification was a major source of corruption and rot in Boring. https://www.newsweek.com/boeing-pleads-guilty-fraud-sweetheart-plea-deal-1921605 https://www.newsweek.com/boeing-pleads-guilty-fraud-sweethea...

malfist 2y ago
Weren't they already obligated to do this as part of a previous plea deal and it didn't do anything to prevent this case? When you or I commit a crime during probation that was the same type of crime that lead to probation in the first place, we get a much much harsher sentence the second time around. For boeing, it seems this plea deal would just be "probation a second time"
banish-m4 2y ago
It's performative BS tantamount to their "self-regulation". Regulatory capture and influence capture is so complete, they can and are getting away with murder.

underseacables 2y ago

For the wealthy, it's always just pay a fine. The financial crisis is a great example. Wealthy CEOs rarely go to jail.

account42 2y ago
And often enough a fine smaller than the total profit from the illicit activity - so it's just a cost of doing business.
banish-m4 2y ago
Too big to jail. In Boeing's case, they're also a "strategic defense contractor" making bombs, missile, fighters, bombers, and such besides airliners the flying public uses. They are a big chunk of the military-industrial complex phenomenon Truman warned about.

Havoc 2y ago

> Sparing them from a trial means no further discovery/uncovering of other illegal shit It’ll be uncovered. Just via they “fk it we’ll do it live” in air method

nullindividual 2y ago

There must be some standard calculation going into that number. US law forbids proportional fines (i.e., scaling with income).

anticensor 2y ago
Not really, they are allowed as long as they have an upper and lower limit in absolute amounts.
banish-m4 2y ago
The medical industry uses QALY.

banish-m4 2y ago

Obama was their pitchman for a while while POTUS. He even directed the DoJ to "announce" premature and incorrect conclusions, overstepping the NTSB's investigation in the Jamaican 737 non-MAX NG crash. It seems Boeing is getting another sweetheart deal because they have lobbyists and powerful allies in DC who can make the deaths of hundreds of people not matter.