Some cases suffer because of bad lawyers incapable of making a reasoned, tenable argument, whereas other cases suffer from bad timing. Then there are other cases, such as this one, which suffer from both.

Victims of OxyContin would have achieved a much more generous settlement had they followed in the steps of Omar Kahdr and engaged in terrorist activity. The Canadian body politic has engaged in much self-flagellation over the fact that poor little Omar was forced into child-soldiery against his will by his nasty, evil father. Had the plaintiffs been able to argue that OxyContin was a gateway drug to Islamic terrorism, the Trudeau government would have tripped over itself in the rush to grant every one of them at last $10 million dollars.