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putting the company out of business serves no particular purpose: lost jobs, higher prices and shortages for important products.
letting it get off without a penalty establishes a clear moral hazard and makes it hard to compensate victims.
evidently, the line is in the middle. and of course, the military tested these earplugs and said they met spec - so should 3m really bear full liability?
and, even with all this: if 85% of the victims still have normal hearing, don't you think ambulance chasing plays a role here?
Hard disagree. Putting the company out of business strongly disincentivizes other companies from engaging in fraud.
> the military tested these earplugs and said they met spec - so should 3m really bear full liability?
This is exactly what a trial is designed to do: Decide who is liable, and to what degree. If 3M had been confident in their actions they could have gone to trial. But of course that path has the highest risk-reward.
> don't you think ambulance chasing plays a role here?
This doesn't matter? You seem to use "ambulance chasing" as a pejorative term for "lawyers trying to win suits for money," but that is literally the foundation of the civil law system. It seems like Hacker News should appreciate that government has created an incentive for private attorneys to pursue claims on behalf of people who have been harmed.
It'll also disincentivize other companies from working in these areas at all.
That's often easy to justify in isolation from an abundance of caution, but in the aggregate it's the cause of things like the Cessna 172 (a design from the 50s!) still being manufactured today.
This is what a trial is for? I'm not sure if you understand how a civil trial works. But lawyers from both sides get to present evidence supporting their case. Unless you're suggesting that 3M (market cap: $57.5 billion) did not have the resources to defend themselves against a frivolous suit.
To state what should be obvious: A company does not settle a frivolous lawsuit for $5.5 billion dollars.
https://search.brave.com/search?q=market+cap+3M&source=deskt...
tl;dr It's not ambulance chasing to sue a company guilty of corporate misconduct.
Clarification/correction: Ambulance chasers make money if they win or if the defendant settles the case.
Why not keep the company around but expropriate it from the current owners?
However, the market has financially punished this company heavily. Look at their recent profit (/massive loss) graph: valustox.com/MMM
I think this is due to money being set aside for this fine. But their stock isn't exactly booming either - probably also due to this.
EDIT:
Looks like they made just under $2B in profit per quarter, and now a $7B loss in one quarter. They have quite a lot of debt, so this isn't the easiest blow to absorb, but they should be able to afford this without going under.
If I caused even three people to become deaf through gross negligence, I'd expect to see jailtime.
Lost profit isn't a punishment to the execs that OK'd this shit, they still have jobs; very lucrative jobs, even.
Those employees directly responsible for this should be punished as well.
It's only 300,000 lawsuits, and 85% have normal hearing. So it's more like 45,000.
Still 45,000 too many, but certainly not "millions" by any stretch.