The Opioid Epidemic and the Courts

thirds of those deaths were linked to opioids. This opioid epidemic has cost the United States two point five trillion dollars between twenty fifteen and twenty eighteen, according to an estimate recently released by the White House Council of Economic Advisors. Now we're addressing this crisis by trying to hold the company is responsible to account with the help of the law.

In order to begin to understand how it's going, it's worth looking back to the Tobacco litigation, which is the last time that the United States tried to address a major public health crisis via lawsuits and litigation. That litigation took place mostly in the nineteen nineties, and the way it happened is that in almost every state, the attorney general of the state, a government official, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state against the major tobacco producing

companies like Philip Morris and R. J. Reynolds. Then what happened is that all of those lawsuits, forty six in total, were brought together by the courts and settled in one fell swoop. The result was that there was a tremendous transfer of money from the big tobacco companies to these forty six states, in which in principle, the tobacco companies compensated the states for the money that they had spent

in dealing with the consequences of people using tobacco. On the one hand, that settlement satisfied both the state attorneys general and the tobacco companies. The state's got an enormous amount of money, and the tobacco companies got a definitive end to litigation, so they could turn around and tell their shareholders there won't be any more lawsuits coming down the pike against us. Yet, at the same time, the tobacco litigation raised a deep and fundamental question of whether

the distribution of money that took place was fair. As we're about to hear this time when it comes to the opioid crisis, the lawsuits are actually a little bit different. Instead of being brought only by state attorneys general, the lawsuits are also being brought by hundreds and hundreds and indeed thousands of local governments around the United States who want a piece of the action and are frustrated that they did not get direct payments from the tobacco companies

in the aftermath of the tobacco litigation settlement. As you can tell, these issues are tricky and they are legal, and so we turned to Professor Abby Gluck of the Yale Law School. She is director of the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale, and she is an expert in the vagaries and complexities of the opioid litigation. Abby, We're starting to hear lots of headlines about lawsuits with

big settlements against drug companies. We're hearing about settlements that the companies are reaching voluntarily before a case goes to trial. Why are we hearing this? Who thinks that lawsuits are the way to solve a problem like the opioid crisis. So there is no health law experts who thinks that litigation is the way to solve a massive public health crisis. Of course, stakeholders turned to other venues first, most prominently legislatures.

State legislatures were asked to act if Congress was asked to act. Congress pass a relatively toothless by partisan bill that threw money at the problem but didn't actually address most of the systemic problems that have led to the cause of the opioid crisis. And in the States, almost every state has passed a slew of laws, things like laws that limit the number of pills that doctors can prescribe, but it just hasn't been enough to get states and

local governments the relief they need. And what they need right now is money and any money, and they're not getting that from their governments. They're looking to the courts to help them with that. Can I ask us somewhat cynical questions, So is somebody gaining by these lawsuits? I mean, are there private attorneys who are representing parties who have money on the table to make through contingent fee agreements or is this whole process somewhat less bound up in

those kinds of lawyer incentives than say, the tobacco lawsuits were. No, there's definitely a lawyering story here. To really understand the lawyering story, you have to understand the political economy of the landscape of the opioid litigation. So There are about twenty eight hundred cases that have currently been filed, and

they've been filed by a mix of plaintiffs. Some of those plaintiffs are Native American tribes, some of those plaintiffs are state attorneys general, and those plaintiffs are represented by

their typical councils. Then there are thousands of cases that have been filed by state and local governments, and that is a new variety, a new thread that we did not see in the tobacco litigation and arguably comes from the tobacco history because when the tobacco settlements were given out several decades ago, money local governments felt that they

got the shaft. They felt that they were not given the money they needed, that the money went into state general treasuries, that the money was not actually directed at tobacco cessation. So they were very open to the idea of bringing lawsuits themselves. The plaintiffs bar approached those local governments offers represent them on a contingency fee basis, it's effectively risk free, and have brought those cases into court.

And that is why you're seeing thousands of cases brought by local governments as well as state attorneys general and to be frank many of the state attorneys general are very unhappy that there is this local thread to the litigation because they have made the argument that they're the ones who are supposed to be suing on behalf of the state. They're the ones who are supposed to be

negotiating with these companies. So this is a fascinating issue that you're describing here, So tell me if I'm getting it right. As a result of the tobacco litigation, in which local governments rather than state governments, feel like they didn't get all the money that they could have gone, or they didn't get all the money that was on the table, they decided they were willing to bring suits, and they have private lawyers representing them who stand to

make money, unlike when a state suits. If it's a state attorney general's office, they don't stand to make any individual or personal money as a result of the lawsuit. So the bottom line, though, is that with two eight hundred cases, you've got a way more complicated landscape of litigation to your term than existed even for the pretty

darn complicated tobacco litigation. Oh yeah, but actually now it's much more complicated than that because what you have to keep in mind is only about two thousand localities have sued, but there are thirty thousand other cities and counties across the United States. And everybody knows that when these two thousand localities sue for X number of dollars, the next day we're going to see a couple of thousand more bringing new suits, in a couple of thousand more bringing

new suits. So the whole ballgame for the last year has been trying to get everybody's arms around the entire scope of liability. And that's not just these twenty eight hundred cases. It's every possible case that might come after that is always in the mind of the parties that are trying to settle. That has been the challenge from the beginning of how to effectively get global peace, even though only a small fraction of the local governments are

actually currently in the case. So lay it out for us, what are the possible avenues to get what a lawyer would call global peace and what a company would call Please nobody sue us anymore. You know, we've paid off all the money we have to pay out, So what are the possible paths to getting to the end of all of this, So I have to give you a

little more background on the political landscape. So, as you know, we have state courts in this country and we have federal courts in this country, and neither has control over what happens in the other side. So on the federal side, we have several different mechanisms that allow course to aggregate litigation when loss of similar cases are filed to try to get to a global resolution. One of those class actions.

In the context of the opioid litigation, class actions have not been viewed as the answer because the Supreme Court has made it very difficult to bring class actions when it comes to cases that involve health. The Supreme Court requires a lot of commonality in certifying a class and it's very hard to prove that people are harmed in the same way when it comes to health cases. To everybody is of the position that you're not gonna be able to get your arms around the complete scope of

litigation just by using a class action. So what are the other federal solutions available before we get to this question of states? So when class actions are not available, a different mechanism has kind of stepped into the breach to address the problem of mass aggregation, and that's called the multidistrict litigation. It's a comes from a federal statue twenty eight USC. Fourteen oh seven that was passed about fifty years ago to deal with a very different problem

of utility litigation. In the last couple decades, multi district litigation has been resorted to when class actions are not available, and the way it works is that it allows the consolidation and a single federal core room for pre trial resolution of similarly situated claims filed across the country. The

key is that it's free trial resolution. A class action goes to the ultimate trial, the ultimate settlement, but with the multidistrict litigation, the idea is that the judge winners the claims, tries to streamline things, takes care of discovery in a consolidative fashion, and then sends everybody home to try the cases on their own jurisdictions. But the fact

of the matter is that virtually never happens. The very fact that big cases are consolidated into an MDL in the first place generally signals that everybody thinks a trial or individual trials are unrealistic, and the goal of the MDL generally is to efficiently settle the cases. That has certainly been what's been happening in the opoid litigation. In this litigation, about a year ago, about two thousand of these cases were consolidated into a single federal courtroom in

Cleveland for a judge named Dan Polster. That judge said in his very first opening statement in the case that he was not interested in bringing these cases to trial. He thought he was dealing with a massive, ongoing public health crisis, and he made clear his goal was to settle and to settle quickly. Now, that would be enough of a challenge, but you've then got the whole state

legal landscape. There are several hundred, about four to five hundred state cases that have been filed by state attorneys general and other plaintiffs, including some localities, some cities and counties in their state courts, and the federal court has no power, no jurisdiction over those four to five hundred

state cases. So even if you could get a settlement in the MDL in Cleveland in that big case, you're not going to have a global settlement because they're still going to be several hundred cases left out in the state court system. So you're in Cleveland, you're a defendant. You're trying to settle these claims. You want to get global peace without the class action. The parties in Cleveland

had to get very creative over the summer. By most account, it appears that they put their heads together and effectively innovated a brand new form of civil procedure. They have suggested that there should be something called a negotiation class it's inspired by a class action, and the idea is that they're making the argument that the localities in the MDL are sufficiently representative of those in the rest of the country that notice is given to all of the

localities across the country. These localities can negotiate on behalf of everybody else and settle these cases on behalf of all relevant counties, even the ones that are not yet in this litigation. Now, that's that's fascinating. This is very very important. And I want to pause here because you know, from the lawyer's standpoint, everything you're saying crackles off the page. But I want us to be clear for non lawyers

who might be listening. If you're still listening and hot lawyers, please don't please don't turn the dial what is going on here? And here's what I think would be a useful piece of background. I think if you don't go to law school, you hear the words class action, you think that's something that plaintiffs want. You think that it's people who are doing the suing who like the idea of a class action because they can combine together the claims of lots of different people and get a lot

of money instead of a little bit of money. But once you enter the incredibly arcane and complex world of class actions, you discover is there are also lots of circumstances where the defendants, the ones who have done the harm and are being sued, love class actions because what

they want is for the case to be over. They want to turn around and say to their shareholders, We've done everything we're gonna have to do, We've paid out our last nickel, and now we can get on with the business of being a company again without having these big,

overhanging potential civil liabilities. So, in the absence of the opportunity for a class action, the defendants and correct me if I'm going wrong, you're abbey, really are trying to find some way to be sure that it's all over that they won't settle with one group of people and then have another group of people appear and say, hey,

guess what now, we're suing you. And it sounds, from what you're saying, like they're trying to invent, on the fly some new legal technology they will allow them to be sure after they've settled cases that there won't be new cases arising. Am I getting that right? Yeah? I think that's right. I would ammendous slightly. I think it was a very long thought out process that was over the summer, so not on the fly, but also not

novel to the MDL. So multidistrict litigation because it is this wild West form of sevil procedure that stepped into the breach to solve a problem that it wasn't really designed to is known for innovating new procedural mechanisms. This is definitely that on steroids, probably the most extreme version of creative procedural innovation that we've seen in MDL. But it's not unprecedented in the sense that that's what mdls do. That's why some people love them, if why some people

think they're lawless. But yes, the party's got together and they said we need a way to get global peace. We need a way to basically settle this case on behalf of the entire country, even though only US slice of local governments are actually in the case so far. We need a way for it to look fair. So we are going to create something that looks like a class action, even though we can't have a class action.

We're going to send notice to thirty thousand local governments over the next two to tell them we're going to negotiate on your behalf unless you opt out, and once they opt in, we're going to settle the case and hold everybody to that. Now, if that seems wild, it is. But remember in a regular class section, that's also what happens. Once you put notice out and certify the class, you can resolve a case on behalf of all of those parties, the ones in the courtroom and the ones who aren't

in the courtroom. That's what they're trying to do. So will it work? I think? I think the big danger doubt it's going to be tied up in litigation for a very long time. So I would not be surprised if this question. Can there be such a thing as a negotiation class makes it up to the Supreme Court. The reason it wouldn't is that most of the parties in these cases like it. Right, the defendant and the

plaintiffs want such a resolution. The state attorneys general have been the ones that are the most opposed thus far. They don't like it because it gives their local governments a mechanism to settle these cases, even perhaps before the state ags can get their own ettlement. So if we see these cases going up, it's going to be I think large part pushed by the state attorney's general trying to get some opposition to these cases in front of

the Supreme Court. The other issue is that you have to have a settlement number for a negotiation class to work. We need two pieces. We need this new form of civil procedure to be upheld, and then we need to get to a settlement in the second place. Can I ask this is obviously a very ballpark question, As you point out, negotiations can break down at any moment. But what's the order of magnitude that a settlement would take? How many billions of dollars are we actually talking about?

So I don't think anybody really knows the complaints that were filed in these cases did not ask for any specific numbers, so we're talking. You know, it would be surprising if the number was less than fifty billion, and most likely in the end it'll be something higher than that. But again, it's risk, it a hazard, a guess. So when that money, if when? And if obviously it's a

big if. If there is some kind of a settlement going from the companies that manufactured the opioids to cities, towns, and states, what in the real world is likely actually to happen to that money? I mean, some of it obviously will go into general budget in places that have overspent their existing budgets trying to deal with the fall out of the opioid crisis. But will there be any prevention element there? Is it all going to be just to play catch up against past damages. In the real world,

what will all that money meet? Well, I think your assumption that some of that money is going to go into the state general treasury may not ultimately prove to be the case. That turned out to be one of the most controversial outcomes of the tobacco litigation that the money went to state general treasuries and wasn't specifically directed toward abatement or prevention. And that's what a lot of

the plaintiffs in these cases are trying to avoid. There's going to be a fight again internal to each date about how this money is spent and who controls it. In Oklahoma, over the summer, they were supposed to be a trial against a bunch of companies. Some of the companies settled and the very first settlement, Perdue Pharma, settled with the state of Oklahoma and the money was sent to a university precisely so that it would not go

into the state general treasury. The Oklahoma legislature got very upset, where's a huge ruckus. So the next settlement that came around, which was Tava the generic manufacturer, that money did go to the Oklahoma treasury. So that's a great example of the kind of fights you're going to see as the settlement numbers come out. And that's because politicians or politicians, and when money is on the table, each one of

them is going to want it for their relevant constituency. Yeah, it also happens to be the case that when state attorneys generals sue the way their recovery funds work, the money isn't always directly sent to the target of the lawsuits in the first place. Theories that were harmed there often go to the general fund. That was what happened

with Echo. In the case of a public health crisis, where there are some counties within a state that have been hurting more than other counties and different kinds of harms, prevention and treatment are not the same kind of harms, money has to go to different places to deal with

prevention and treatment. It's complicated, and a good use of the funds would think through the various causes of the crisis, the various ways in which the counties are hurting, and trying to make sure those funds are directed in some way.

What I'm hearing is not optimism from you. I mean, I'm not hearing from you either that there's great optimism that this will all be solved soon, or that the large sum of money that's going to eventually change hands is necessarily going to be used in ways that are actually in the real world effective. So my first question is, on this point, am I right that I'm not hearing a lot of optimism. I mean, I think if your abbey is a very optimistic person, you want you like

to solve things and make them work better. But you don't sound so optimistic this time. Now. I think you're overreading my pessimism, so it's more of a realism. I'm optimistic that there's going to be a settlement. I am less certain that the money is going to be dispersed in ways that are actually targeted to the problem. I'm encouraged by some states efforts to start drafting legislation in preparation for the receipt of these funds to say when money comes in, it has to go to X, Y

and Z. I think that would be helpful. I also think that we have a judge in Cleveland who has not been afraid to get his hands in this to this and he does not seem to be running out the door right So I think when we get a settlement from him and an idea world, the settlement is going to be structured, is going to say where the money is going to go, and Judge Polster is going to watch it. But I am less optimistic that money

is going to solve a public health crisis. I don't think any health expert thinks that money can abate a public health crisis. Money can help cities put money back in their coffers when they've already paid for a health public health crisis. But we have fourteen states that haven't expanded Medicaid. That's a huge portion of the population that has no access to healthcare because they don't have insurance. That would do a heck of a lot to help

the public health crisis. That's a legal solution that has nothing to do what's going on in the courtroom. We also have some very antiquated federal laws on the books that make it extremely difficult for doctors to treat opioid use disorder and addiction. It requires you to go to a separate location, not your doctor's office, to get methadone. That's a barrier, and it actually limits the number of patients any one doctor can treat for opioid addiction with

another drug boot for norphine at a time. We don't regulate any other kind of treatment this way. It's any Joe Schmo can prescribe an opioid, and when people get addicted, it's very hard to treat them. And those are legal problems, those are system problems, and none of that is going to be solved by this litigation. Does any other country on Earth think that litigation is even part of the way you should go about addressing crises like these, or

is this a craziness that is distinctively American? You know, to my knowledgist is a uniquely American phenomena. But that is the backbone of our litigation system. You know, we use our litigation system and the adversary system to hold the government accountable, to hold parties an accountable pro and con. But we are unique in this regard. A lot of countries look on us, I think with an eyebrow raised.

I mean, I think it might have to be more than an eyebrows as we walk into this crisis, do you have any faith that when there is some other similar crisis, the next public health crisis generated by big companies of some kind or another, that they would take a deep breath before trying to make a lot of money on a product like tobacco or like opioids, thinking somewhere down the road, we're going to have to pay a very high price. Or do you think that rational?

You know, money maximizing corporate actors in the future would say, you know what, it's always a question of rolling the dice. Here in the United States, and we always know we could get sued whether we did anything bad or not. So let's just try to make as much money as we can and if we're sued, eventually we'll deal with

that problem, will be come to it. Because if that's the case, then I feel as though we're in a kind of repetition compulsion that we just we do the same thing again and again and again, and as you say, we use the money to abate it, but we don't

really solve it, you know. I think that that question overlooks key factors about both the tobacco cases and the opioid cases, and that is that this is not just a case of a successful drug that had unforeseen side effects that addicted a lot of people and caused a lot of health problems. This, at least according to the allegations, is like tobacco, is a case in which companies had a drug, they knew the drug had addictive and harmful properties, and covered that up and then made money off of it.

So it's not just litigation that is a deterrent, it's sort of honest services in corporate dealing that should be a deterrent for this. So I don't think you're going to stop American capitalist. I'm trying to maximize the office from a successful drug that remember, has valid medical uses, is approved by the FDA, is necessary for many kinds of surgeries and for people dying with cancer. So you know, a company, arguably shouldn't you be deterred from producing those

kinds of drugs because they're helpful to society. But what this litigation should hopefully deter companies from doing is a lying, covering up, committing arguable acts of fraud on the public to get people hooked on drugs that they're representing is not addictive. Now, we haven't had a trial, those claims haven't improved, but those are the allegations that are being made. Those are the kinds of things that we're particularly damaging to Johnson and Johnson when they went on trial in

Ohio and Oklahoma and some public documents came out. I think that's why we're seeing this move towards settlement. These companies don't want to go on trial. They don't want to incur the kind of reputational harm that would come from not from trying to maximize profits, but from covering up harmful aspects of a drug. That they're aggressively marketing and not telling anybody about I think that's a deterrent.

I hope that's the deterrent, and we'll have to see if the numbers are big enough to make that happen. Is that enough of a deterrent though, I mean, I mean, if you know that when push comes to shove you can settle rather than take the embarrassment. Sure it's going to cost you some money down the road, but it

doesn't seem like a very powerful deterrent to lying. I mean, you know, if people working for companies have actually lied and covered up very dangerous consequences of their products, shouldn't we be talking more in terms of criminal sanctions. There are of criminal cases that have been filed, so I do think that's part of the agin. It's a vague part of the puzzle, right, So we have seen a

bunch of criminal cases. We also are seeing companies going out of business over this perdue, farmers going to go out of business over this right. So if that's not enough of a deterrent, then we need sort of a wholesale revamping of our of our legal system. But hopefully criminal charges, reputational damage and the potential for going out

of business should be enough to get companies sacked. Last question, Abby, So all of what we've been talking about is about trying to hold the pharma company is liable for what they've done. Is there something that the rest of us consumers should be doing now we're or in the future to think about what we might do to try to

avoid crises like this arising in the future. Or is it really just a question of tweaking the system, making it work properly, and creating the right incentives so that companies that obviously have much more information about the content of what they're making and the effects of their products than we do can be held responsible. Well, I think you have to understand that the opoid crisis was not caused by people with back pain taking too many drugs. Right.

The drugs were put into the market through the FDA through medical practice. People did become addicted to them, but then they were diverted to recreational use. That recreational market picked up significantly. People saw an opportunity. Cheap synthetic versions of that drug were then brought in just like other drugs like heroin. Right, it's not that different, And so I think that where we are right now, in this phase of the crisis, it's not a consumer issue anymore.

It started out as a consumer issue, it has become a recreational, street level drug use issue that is of a different nature, and so it can't possibly be averted by consumers anymore. Consumers can ask doctors questions, consumers can try to recognize symptoms of addiction and not be embarrassed to go to their doctor and talk about addiction. But

the crisis got far bigger than doctor's offices. You know, a number of years ago, there was an early wave of prosecutions what we're called so called pill mills doctors that were distributing too many drugs. Where we are now is far beyond that. You don't hear about pill mill kings. We're hearing about major drug trafficking, worring about people dying from a single dose of a drug that looks like an opioid but is laced with a synthetic version of it that is so dangerous that it can kill a

teenager with one drug. It's a very different problem than just a consumer drug problem. I mean, thank you so much for analyzing this, for clarifying it, and for showing us, in fact just how hard it is to get a solution here, but also for providing some optimism about how we're going to work our way through it going forward. Thank you very much for your time. Yeah, I hope so, thanks so much. Noah. Now for our sound of the week, or really two sounds. First, this familiar voice, mister gerbaschof

teared down this wall. And then just two years later this happened. That was the sound of celebration, almost exactly thirty years ago, when the Berlin Wall in fact was breached and people began to be able to move freely back and forth between West and East Berlin. This thirtieth anniversary is really, in a sense, the anniversary of the end of the Cold War, and it raises a fascinating question.

Who won. To listen to Ronald Reagan tell it, it was the West that won, with its distinctive combination of free market economies and liberal democracy. And that's the narrative that cut on in much of the world in the aftermath of the Cold War. It's certainly the narrative that cut on in the West. Decide the thought of itself as having won a victory today, it's not so obvious who won the Cold War, it is still pretty clear that communism as an economic system did lose to capitalism.

After all, in the direct aftermath of the fall of Berlin Wall, the entire Soviet Bloc gave up on communist economic organization and headed in the direction of a market economy. Meanwhile, in the same years, the government of China, though in theory remaining communist, adopted what is essentially a capitalist version of state owned business. It's still not Western free market capitalism, but it's a distinctive form of Chinese capitalism that the

Chinese call socialism with Chinese characteristics. That only makes sense if you realize that the Chinese characteristics are that it's not really socialism. And the consequence of that grand transition of formerly communist economies into capitalist economies has been nothing short of amazing. China rose to become the number two economy in the world, and it's on track eventually to exceed the economy of the United States. That was a direct objective proof of what could happen when you just

took away the structure of commun economic organization. No one today is a serious communist from an economic standpoint, even holdouts like Cuba and North Korea are gradually investing in the process of marketizing or in other words, capitalizing their economies. Yet the idea that liberal democracy had won a victory over unfree forms of authoritarian government looks increasingly doubtful in

the light of events of recent years. China, the same country that adopted capitalism, made no steps whatsoever in the direction of liberalizing politics in its country, and no steps in the direction of becoming more democratic, despite its authoritarian system of government that is in fact only gotten more authoritarian in the era of Shijinping. China's economic growth has

continued partly the influence of this Chinese model. Countries around the world that we're experimenting with liberal democracy in the aftermath of the Cold War have begun to back away from that model. You can think of this in the case of countries like Hungry or Turkey that had democracy, had elections and then elected strong man leaders, or slowly but surely ironing the basic democratic freedoms that we associate

with liberal government. If you're a country that's today trying to figure out how to reform yourself, it's obvious that you had head in the direction of greater capitalism, but it's not at all obvious that you had head in

the direction of greater political freedom. And indeed, the rise of populism has even undercut liberal democratic institutions in countries that we think of as lying in the heartland of traditional democracy, countries like the United States in the Donald Trump administration, and even countries like Britain, which is, of course the original home of modern liberal democracy. What should we make of the fact the capitalism is doing great but liberal democracy is in a certain amount of trouble.

The first lesson I think we should take away from that is that history takes a long time to play itself out. In the Euphoria thirty years ago, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it was easy to imagine that every aspect of the West had defeated every aspect of communism, and in retrospect it's pretty clear that that

just wasn't so. The second takeaway is that liberal democracies can no longer rest on their laurels and say that the reason liberal democracy is a good form of government is that it will help you defeat your enemies by making your country the richest and strongest country that it can possibly be. That argument sounded pretty good in the aftermath of the Cold War. That argument sounds terrible today.

In its place, liberal democracies have to come up with a different argument, one that says that democracy is good on its own terms. That the reason we should have voting is that every human being is genuinely entitled to a say that the reason that we have liberal rights is that each human being is entitled to be protected in his or her fundamental dignity. That the reason we have freedom of expression is that part of the human experience that makes it worth being alive is the chance

to express your views and try to influence others. The upshot is that democracy cannot say any longer be a democrat and win your wars. It must say be a democrat, because democracy is inherently valuable, even if it doesn't always make your country the most powerful one on the block. Deep Background is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. Our producer is Lydia Genecott, with engineering by Jason Gambrel and

Jason Rostkowski. Our showrunner is Sophie mckibbon. Our theme music is composed by Luis GERA special thanks to the Pushkin Brass Malcolm Gladwell, Jacob Weisberg, and mi A Lobel. I'm Noah Feldman. You can follow me on Twitter at Noah R Feldman. This is deep background