The BJR only applies if the board of directors acted in good faith that their actions had a reasonable chance of making a profit based on their knowledge of the situation. So if the corporation makes a gamble on New Coke (cheaper to produce, costs the same = profit, right?) and it doesn't pay off (because otherwise loyal customers abandon the brand), the BJR comes down in their favor.

If however, Tyson looks at the numbers and sees that chaining the doors closed in chicken fixing plants will save more money in prevented theft than it will cost in wrongful death suits if the plant burns down - Tyson is obligated to chain the factory doors closed. If GM looks at the numbers and sees that continuing production of a Chevrolet Malibu with a dangerously flawed gas tank will cost less in wrongful death payments than orchestrating a recall would - the consumer gets a leaky gas tank less than a foot from the rear bumper. If Union Carbide determines that the chance of their Bhopal plant exploding and killing 15,000 people is small enough that the extra safety precautions required to reduce that risk are more costly... you get the idea.

If the estimated chance of profit times the expected profit is favorable for a course of action, a corporation must perform that action. If the estimated chance of loss times the expected loss is unfavorable, the course of action must not be taken.

What with inflation, I'm sure the cost of human life has gone up, at least in the United States. But India hasn't ever managed to collect from Union Carbide, so obviously the cost of human life is less than $200,000 elsewhere.

Corporations don't give a damn about you.

-Frank

Keep in mind one of the shareholders still has to be willing to put their name on a lawsuit to force the company to chain the doors, which means they then will become a viable target in a future wrongful death lawsuit or prosecution (or both, FYI for those about to scream Double Jeopardy protection if you are indicted and tried for a crime you can than become the target of a civil suit to recover damages caused by said crime, ask OJ about that) if the plant does burn down. While they may be able to afford the settlement, they may not like the potential prison time, remember prosecutors like publicity too especially elected ones.

Now this is a point where RL splits from SR, an AAA Extraterritorial Corp may be completely immune from prosecution because the deaths may not be wrongful under the corps law or the Officer would have to be extradited to be tried which the corp may choose not to allow as a sovereign nation.

Absolutely. There are a number of pitfalls:

As steve pointed out, giving yourself a legal trail that proves you lobbied for a specific course of action can potentially jeopardize your corporate protection from accountability if things go wrong.

Further, you actually have to convince a jury that you're right. Even if the law backs you up 100% (and well, it does), good luck getting a jury of 12 uninformed civillians to agree to your "infant alchemy" plans. Things which are sufficiently evil are hard to sell to the public, and if it ever goes to court some of those guys get vetoes.

But remember, we aren't talking about people writing up court documents demanding that workers in chicken plants be chained to their work stations and then set on fire. We're talking about people demanding "State of the art employee theft deterance systems" be put into practice to avoid profit loss...

The law is on their side, and most boards won't even risk going up against shareholders in a court battle where all they would have on their side is basic human decency. Sometimes that'll win you a court case, but not as often as you'd hope.

-Frank

One District Attorney is elected, all the others are appointed Assistant District Attorneys.

In the grim future of 2070 everyone is appointed except for those that pretend to hold elections.

That's true and the one elected one takes credit for all the work done by the appointed ADA's, at least in the high profile cases.

As for the elimination of elections in 2070, I can't think of anything in the Canon that supports that, if that's how your game works that's cool.

Or the vote of the best hacker on the job for that race, I get a lot of campaign mileage out of elections so I opt for as many as possible in my games. Some of the actions contracted by some of the candidates' campaigns make Nixon look like a saint by comparrison.