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IPFS News Link • Justice and Judges

Antonin Scalia: The Billion-Dollar Supreme Court Justice

• theintercept.com

Dow was in the midst of appealing a $1.06 billion class-action antitrust ruling after a jury found that it had conspired with other chemical companies to fix prices for urethane, a material used in furniture and appliances.

But because of Scalia's death and the sudden unlikelihood of finding five votes on the Supreme Court to overturn the case, Dow decided to settle for $835 million, the bulk of the original award.

"Growing political uncertainties due to recent events with the Supreme Court and increased likelihood for unfavorable outcomes for business involved in class-action suits have changed Dow's risk assessment of the situation," the company told Bloomberg News.

The case reveals how corporations have used the conservative majority on the court as a safety valve to nullify unfavorable rulings. As the Alliance for Justice has documented, time and again, the Roberts Court has issued 5-4 rulings that protect big corporations from liability, limit access to justice for workers and consumers, and allow companies to evade regulations on the environment, racial and gender discrimination, and monopolistic practices.

1 Comments in Response to

Comment by Don Duncan
Entered on:

What difference who the govt. favors this year or next? The losers will be the people. Even when there is no corps to serve, as in the USSR when all businesses were owned by the "people", the people got screwed. Focusing on specifics is missing the point. The problem is the political/economic power is concentrated and the people worship the system, while hating their rulers. But the outcome will not be better with different rulers. It's the system!!! When people stop worshipping the myth that they can delegate to someone else the power to run their lives, then they will self govern, fixing everything. Until then, there is no hope.



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