Cough Up or Pay Up?
Looks like Altria, the parent company of Phillip Morris/Kraft Foods and other U.S. Tobacco giants wont have to pay damages totalling $145 Billion. The Florida Supreme Court decided to side with industry. Damages awarded by lower courts were rejected because they were “clearly excessive, it would bankrupt some of the defendants”. The court was reluctant to support nearly 1 million Florida victims claims although reinstated damages for 2 individuals.
It will be interesting to see how things go in the Industry vs. People/Environment going forward. U.S. citizens are trying to sue a Canadian mining company Teck Cominco for cross border polluting. How many more cases will be won and lost? Sarnia must have a case? Will Torontoians band together and sue U.S. polluters over their contribution?
It’s a small world after all… It’s just common sense to respect each other (and the Environment). After all it’s your own pool you would be pissing in. Wouldn’t it be nice if all the costs of smog weren’t bourne only by the public and the health system. Not sure lawsuits are the answer (lawyers earn enough!!!) but something should scare deadbeat companies straight.
How’s the market treating …
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Nice article Swoon! I agree that something should be done but that also probably lawsuits are not the answer. The main reason why is that they can just go round and round back and forth both within and across borders. (And then ultimately even smoking in a park would be illegal.)
I know that all sorts of laws are passed to keep companies from polluting..but I also know what goes down the drain where I work. Employees who are fully trained and versed in what to do etc. see a new chemical and just forget to look up the MSData Sheet and dump it down the drain. Only to THEN find out that it was a reportable spill if ANY bit of it goes into the water supply. Oops right?
Then there is the fact that the regulations on the emissions of pollutants was changed from reading actual amounts to PPM of the total exhaust. Meaning that if you pump out enough steam along with your pollutants, then you are lessening the PPM even though you are still sending out the EXACT same amount of bad stuff.