> resulted in the deaths of thousands.

The number the Supreme Court used in its decision was 247,000 deaths over a twenty year period. That's the verified number and therefore almost certainly lower than reality.

It also makes sense to me. If someone didn't join the class action, they should not be bound by its settlement, and should be free to pursue damage claims on their own.

deaths of thousands is a massive understatement. Just overdose deaths is probably getting close to a million. But they are also responsible for:

The people who don't OD but have their lives destroyed by opiods.

The family and friends who suffer because someone they know is an addict.

The time, money and energy society has spent trying to help addicts.

All the crimes, victims of crime and criminal justice costs that are a result of addiction.

They didn't kill thousands of people, they killed millions, affected every single person in the country negatively and contributed to the destabilization of our society.

Definitely a positive income. These people bear some of the responsibility for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

There is no way they should ever be immune from further punishments and get to live out the rest of their lives as billionaires.

Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissented.

Not quite. From the NY Times:

> In a 5-to-4 decision, written by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a majority of the justices held that the federal bankruptcy code does not authorize a liability shield for third parties in bankruptcy agreements. Justice Gorsuch was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

My lineup was extracted from an AP story. Which is correct?

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-purdue-pharma-opioi...

The decision itself:

> GORSUCH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which THOMAS, ALITO, BARRETT, and JACKSON, JJ., joined. KAVANAUGH, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and SOTOMAYOR and KAGAN, JJ., joined.

NYT was right and AP has now corrected theirs. Reload and check errata at the bottom.

The NY times. The AP story seems to have just been corrected.

You mean John Roberts instead of Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The settlement was really a bit insane to me - we’re giving immunity to a family that killed hundreds of thousands and destroyed who knows how many more, and the money is being paid to local governments. In my area they planned on spending their share on things like “outreach” and free-to-the-addict narcan so they could continue to run around causing local mayhem.

Speaking as a man with a deceased father and aunt as a result of the Sacklers, really it’s a spit in the face kind of outcome that was shot down. They ought to be locked up next to El Chapo in ADX Florence.