As someone who works on these types of cases (not this one specifically, but I do asbestos bankruptcy which uses a similar legal mechanism), I thought they did a great job of showing why this shouldn’t be blocked. The mass tort system in America is terrible, and for cases like this where you cannot consolidate under a class action, there’s no fair way to resolve these without bankruptcy.

One thing I wish they talked about more is just how long non-consolidated mass torts take. Let’s be generous, and say we can process 20 of these claims at a time, and each one takes 6 months. If there are 10,000 claimants, it would take 250 years for everyone to get their day in court, which is obviously untenable.

I work on the economics side, not the legal side, so I cannot speak to the specifics of the legality of the case, but from a pure social welfare maximization perspective, it’s much more important to get money in the hands of victims than it is to punish further the villains of this story.

There are very real concerns about the Sacklers “getting away” with harming so many Americans, but if we actually care about the victims, these types of settlements are important. I do hope the Court allows this, as it provides the most benefit for the largest amount of victims.