[lbo-talk] Violent crime and ... leaded gasoline

[andie_nachgeborenen]

Lawsuits, like the one I was defending from the bad guy's side, are not irrelevant to them because they harm profits. That's why we have tort law. The plaintiffs' theory was negligence rather than recklessness, which can be a criminally culpable state of mind if there is an appropriate statute. But private plaintiffs can't bring a criminal case and recklessness is much harder to prove ("conscious disregard of a known risk" as opposed to "not taking reasonable or due care"). And of course for a criminal case you'd have to get a prosecutor to bring charges. The DoJ or the EPA would think pretty hard about taking on the entire oil industry with all its money and high powered lawyers for a probably losing case, and big oil is a big campaign contributor to the boss of the heads of those agencies. So it's up to private plaintiffs and trial lawyers who will litigate in the hope of a big settlement. They don't like to pay big settlements or expensive lawyers, and that is an incentive for them to behave less badly.

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 18, 2013, at 7:13 PM, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:


> 
> On Jan 18, 2013, at 12:15 PM, andie_nachgeborenen wrote:
>> Oil companies are wicked, but not everything they do is driven by a conscious desire to maximize both profits and harm to the public.
> That is true.  Harm to the public is irrelevant to them,  Unlike the "conscious desire to maximize profits." But "reckless disregard" counts as criminal intent, doesn't it?
> 
> Shane Mage
> 
> "Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64
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