Tag Archives: morality

Who’s Responsible?

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The company who made and sold the product, or the company that bought the product from a third party which actually did the development?

That’s a somewhat convoluted statement of the question, isn’t it?  Maybe that’s what confused the Alabama Supreme Court.

This body of judges has decided that brand-name drug makers can be held liable for injuries caused by the generic versions of their products.  The particular case has a plaintiff buying a generic drug—a copy of a patented drug—developed and originally manufactured by Wyeth.  Pfizer Inc later acquired Wyeth, and Schwarz Pharma Inc also acquired rights to the drug.  The plaintiff sued, among others, Pfizer and Schwarz Pharma, and the Alabama Supremes let the suit against these two go forward.

Imagine that.  They didn’t make the product, but they’re responsible for anything that goes wrong.

As Pfizer notes,

Alabama’s decision would allow generic-drug makers “to reap the profits of drug sales while leaving brand manufacturers with the liability” and violate the basic legal tenet that a manufacturer is liable only for its products[.]

Chris Hood, plaintiff’s lawyer said, without a particle of irony,

The Alabama Supreme Court is the first and only supreme court of any state to adopt the theory of liability we advocate.  It correctly identified and applied basic tort principles overlooked by numerous lower courts which rejected similar theories.

Progressive “Capitalism”

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The Wall Street Journal describes some concerning our illustrious Treasury Secretary nominee.

The terms of Mr Lew’s original employment contract with Citi included a bonus guarantee if he left the bank for a “high level position with the United States government or regulatory body.”

Most companies include incentives for top employees not to leave, but in this case the contract was written to reward Mr Lew for treating the bank like a revolving door.

There’s more:

…former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who was paid more than $115 million while encouraging the risk-taking that would have destroyed Citi if not for a taxpayer rescue.

Mr Rubin was Mr Lew’s patron at the bank.  Mr Lew’s contract suggests that Citi knew from the start that Mr Lew was headed back to a powerful job in Washington, and that it wanted him to remember the bank fondly when he left.

Hmm….

 

h/t Falkenblog

Quit Whining, and Lead

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Quit crying about the lack of leadership, Republicans; you’re not providing any, either, with that.  Step up and lead.  Where are your proposals?  Talk about what you’ve passed that the Democrats are ignoring.  Pass a bill that substitutes targeted cuts for the sequester, and put the onus on the Democrats.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R):

The president needs to step up to the plate.  There is never enough taxes for this administration.

Senator Tom Coburn (R, OK):

…told Fox News that the cuts will happen but put the blame on President Obama, saying he has provided “no leadership” on averting the cuts, known as sequester.

And he added,

The reason there is no agreement is because there’s no leadership from the president on actually recognizing what the problem is.

Senator John McCain (R, AZ) had this:

I won’t put all the blame all on the president of the United States.  But the president leads.  The president should be calling us over somewhere—Camp David, the White House, somewhere—and us sitting down and trying to avert these cuts.

Do.  Stop bleating.

Being Moral is a Firing Offense

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Of course it is.  Twyla DeVito, a bartender at a Shelby, OH, American Legion establishment, was fired for calling the police about a drunken patron who was leaving the bar in his vehicle.  She had this:

“I came into work, he was already there, pretty much hammered. … He ordered a beer, I gave it to him, and then I started to try to slow it down, serving him.”
She said that when he went to leave, she knew he was not in a state to drive.
“I called the police and said, ‘We have a very drunk person leaving the bar. He is going to kill someone or himself,'” [she said.]

The police caught up with him, and his breathalyzer test came out 0.167—twice the legal limit.  After that, Mic Hummard, her boss, fired her, saying

…it’s bad for business to have a bartender that will call the cops.  If every patron who comes in here has to worry about the cops waiting for them when they leave, the place would be empty.

Amazingly, he added that while DeVito did the right thing morally, she did not do the right thing for the business.

More Government Interference

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…and more overreach by one branch of government.  James Bovard had this in a recent Wall Street Journal piece.

In 1989, the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] sued Carolina Freight Carrier Corp of Hollywood, FL, for refusing to hire as a truck driver a Hispanic man who had multiple arrests and had served 18 months in prison for larceny.  The EEOC argued that the only legitimate qualification for the job was the ability to operate a tractor trailer.

US District Judge Jose Alejandro Gonzalez Jr, in ruling against the agency, said: “EEOC’s position that minorities should be held to lower standards is an insult to millions of honest Hispanics. Obviously a rule refusing honest employment to convicted applicants is going to have a disparate impact upon thieves.”

Despite this crystalline ruling of long standing, the EEOC is persisting.

Last April, the agency unveiled its “Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions,” declaring that “criminal record exclusions have a disparate impact based on race and national origin.”

Thus,

If a background check discloses a criminal offense, the EEOC expects a company to do an…”individualized assessment” that will somehow prove that it has a “business necessity” not to hire the ex-offender (or that his offense disqualifies him for a specific job).  Former EEOC General Counsel Donald Livingston, in testimony in December to the US Commission on Civil Rights, warned that employers could be considered guilty of “race discrimination if they choose law abiding applicants over applicants with criminal convictions” unless they conduct a comprehensive analysis of the ex-offender’s recent life history.

Just one more example of this administration’s disregard for the other two branches of our Federal government.  And of our individual liberties.