Say the line, Bart!
Stories like this get a lot of unwarranted attention because corporations want the laws to be changed to make it even harder to sue them.
Yaay!
This is called tort reform, “changes in the civil justice system in common law countries that aim to reduce the ability of plaintiffs to bring tort litigation or to reduce damages they can receive”.
Torts are literally the only thing left that gives regular people the power to credibly threaten big companies when they engage in flagrant wrongdoing . When I was younger and less political savvy, I always wondered why tort reform was such a persistent part of the GOP platform. Once I spent many years working at companies who manufactured products that could be a hazard, I realized that every time a decision was made that ensured the safety of the customer, it was because “otherwise we might get sued”. This persistent threat of huge damage payouts from civil suits was literally the only thing that drove decision making away from screwing or killing the customers. You better believe these fuckers would put plutonium in the velveeta if they thought it would be profitable and wouldn’t get them sued.
