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But the current remedy of a non-human legal entity is that the entity can be sued and affect many people adversely who weren't responsible for the wrong. We ne
by devmonk 16y ago
But the current remedy of a non-human legal entity is that the entity can be sued and affect many people adversely who weren't responsible for the wrong.
We need a different remedy, like the ability for a citizen to sue every citizen belonging to an organization together if the organization was found responsible for the wrong. Then those citizens not responsible in that organization would have to have witnesses and documentation to prove that they were not responsible for the wrong.
And instead of sueing, I think that prison sentences would work better. Putting all responsible persons from a company into prison would get people's attention. Also, citizens and lawyers producing substantial litigation without merit would be imprisoned.
- JoachimSchipper 16y agoSo, next time <huge company> does something wrong, someone will need to check several hundred thousand "not me" documents?
- devmonk 16y agoNo, you would just need a document by enough people in the organization to specify who caused the issue. For example, if a scientist knows that a drug caused a side effect that included brain damage, but chose to hide that fact through manipulation of the data to get the drug approved, and two out of four on his small team knew (were accomplices) but two were not in the know, then the two not in the know could claim innocence, and the rest of company as a whole could claim as a whole (a single document that all agree to) that the aforementioned team was responsible. Assuming that federal investigation (FBI for example) was assisting, they could help prove the innocence of others in the company as well as the innocence of the two on the team that were unaware of cover-up. The three involved would be imprisoned.
- anthonyb 16y agoSounds awfully like guilty-until-proven-innocent to me...
- JoachimSchipper 16y agoAnd it makes it even more likely that the little guy gets punished instead of the executive who told him to do it (and has all of the corporate lawyers working for him). No, "orders are orders" is not a sufficient defense. "It was my underling" isn't either.
- jonknee 16y agoThat sounds like an absolutely awful idea. Offices are already full of CYA behavior, but if I can go to jail because another guy in my department did something wrong and I couldn't prove that I wasn't aware, I think you'd see a lot less economic activity. It would be too risky to be a part of a group. The only winners would be lawyers.