Exposing Corporate Misconduct

”Under your direction, your company has in fact continued to allow women, tens of thousands of them, to wear this device--a deadly depth charge in their wombs ready to explode at any time . . . . The only conceivable reasons you have not recalled this product are that it would hurt your balance sheet and alert women who have already been harmed that you may liable for their injuries . . . . If this were a case in equity, I would order your company to make an effort to locate each and every woman who still wears this device and recall your product. But this court does not have the power to do so. I must therefore resort to moral persuasion and a personal appeal to each of you. . . . Please, in the name of humanity, lift your eyes above the bottom line . . . . Please, gentlemen, give consideration to tracing down the victims and sparing them the agony that will surely be theirs.”

As reported by Richard B. Sobol in his book, Bending the Law: The Story of the Dalkon Shield Bankruptcy (1991),