Here is todays devils panties and wow. Been knocking it out of the park this week to me. Although not really the take here it makes me think about mercury in fish. As a doomer I actually feel that even if global warming was taken away by a genie wish and we 100% did not add carbon going forward we are in real trouble because of pollution. In our planet and in our products. I mean it seems when people talk about the rise of civilization they talk about agriculture growing staple crops, but fishing to me is even larger in importance for civilization. Its been our staple protein for most of history. Then of course we have the use of pesticides causing the increase in arsenic in our staples to. ugh.
So instead of a recall, there should be a class action?
It's complicated to hold the people responsible responsible, since they're largely outside the US jurisdiction. The US companies that sold the product were, as far as anyone knows, ignorant of the contamination, buying from people ignorant of it who bought from people ignorant of it.
But yes, there should be, and are, lawsuits about the issue in addition to the recall.
Recalls are about public safety, and lawsuits about assigning blame or correcting wrongs. They're not exclusive or substitutes.
A fair point. But in criminal law when you don't know the guy in the passenger seat is going to jump out and shoot someone you still get life in prison for it. Civil litigation is not even bound by that and I would think a finding that they burned all their internal documentation to avoid discovery that they knew very well there was lead in it would be enough to award damages.
Like I said, there are lawsuits and there should be, because a business is ultimately responsible for what it sold and who it chose to do business with to a fundamentally higher standard than an individual is.
The consumer facing businesses can turn around a sue their suppliers to continue the chain.
Finding they destroyed documentation that they knew something would indeed be a pretty big smoking gun. There's no real reason to think that they did though, since the businesses in question aren't actually making any money off of it or in a position to benefit. They actually loose money by having to pull stock and destroy it.
In at least one case, we know which company added the lead and which potentially knew about it, they're just in Ecuador.
Also, felony murder requires that you have intent to commit a criminal act. As written, not necessarily as applied, it would apply if you agreed to drive to a gas station robbery and your passenger killed someone. If you just agree to give someone a ride and then they kill someone you're not culpable, assuming you said "oh hell no" and then didn't continue to give them a ride post-murder.
I mean whats annoying is for my fence thing its not just lawsuits. I would get contacted by a city agency and be required to do a whole bunch of quick safety things and given a certain amount of time to fully remediate and maybe some fines regardless. heck if you let your grass grow to long they will use city guys to cut it and then give you a hefty billNfine.