Okay, we can be nicer about it, let's just eliminate some of their ability to wreak havoc and gum up the works. Part of Congress's emergency legislation eliminates tort liability for N95 masks provided to healthcare workers, thus freeing up manufacturers like 3M to start flooding the market with them.
There are some approaches to an emergency that don't have out-of-pocket costs. Later we can argue over whether the fear of tort liability might have prevented a manufacturer from cutting corners. Right now I just want to see the masks, and without the inevitable explanation that it will require months to grind through to the regulatory approval process. It's time to mow some of these guys down, and that goes equally for the people looking to hit the jackpot if they wore a mask and it wasn't 100% effective in protecting them from every conceivable risk in life.
We're going to need the same approach to vaccines and other treatments.
9 comments:
Tort liability for something like a mask is idiotic. EVERYTHING depends on proper use ,controlled by the user. And how would one ever prove where an infection was picked up?
This sort of frivolous lawsuit could be solved by making the plaintiffs lawyer responsible responsible for the cost of the defense, should they lose the suit. Right now, it is just a lottery playing for a sympathetic jury. I have to say with the education in this country, and the antics coming out of the courts, my faith in any kind of just trial is low.
I rotate among groups in feeling profound disgust over this kind of thing: lawyers who make their living at it, plaintiffs who shoot for the moon, and idiotic juries. I don't know any way to eliminate it short of legislation. We ought to have to prove something close to depraved indifference, like sending out masks with well-known defects to trick people into wearing them, knowing they aren't really filtering at all.
It's not either-or, but there is an aspect of "luxury good" here, and it's hard to draw lines. Of course we can't have manufacturers be unaccountable and lead people to think they are safe when they aren't, especially when things are flowing along smoothly and everyone is making money. Conversely, of course we cannot eliminate fairly obvious practical choices in an emergency.
A hybrid legal system that recognised both would be best, but the absolutist form of driving every spike to the center of the earth seems to have worked well for American justice in the long run.
I'm waiting for the lawyers in Florida who are suing the Chinese government for the Wu-Flu to find a process server to deliver the papers.
On a more serious note, waiving the liability in favor of common sense is a major step in the right direction.
LittleRed1
Tex,
There is a biker term for "depraved indifference". Or maybe just total indifference.
"DILLIGAF"
:>)
I don't think depravity is a requirement for that term. I knew a guy who had it tattooed on his knuckles.
If you can't get a good seal, for your face, those masks aren't much more effective than wearing rags under your nose and mouth.
The P100 filters I use, are pretty good, but if you turn your head too far, the seal breaks.
Lawyers in lawsuits get as much as 75%-90% of the damages awarded. That's basically Mafia level profiteering. If you can profit even 60% of 2 million dollars, what would you do? Chase ambulances obviously. A few times, what's the worth of a soul compared to retirement... thinks humanity.
I wonder how much manufacturing capacity we lost when "successful" class action recovery was won against Johnson & Johnson, Dow, and others. Making what were considered safe products, discovering problems, and attempting a transition away instead of a panic ... they were accused of "covering up" the "known dangers" of -- talcum powder? Silicone?
I don't want to be in a business with such irrational risks.
J Melcher, couldn't agree more. There's some major BS science in a lot of class-action cases. They look like straight-up extortion to me. I've lost a lot of faith in the ability of juries to see through them: too often they enjoy playing Fairy Godmother and striking a blow against the evil rich corporation. Well, we may miss some of the rich corporations when they're gone. I doubt we'll miss the softheaded jurors.
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