If you want to know why the latest mortgage headlines matter you have to go back to 1998 and the deal worked out by the tobacco industry to avoid bankruptcy.
For decades before the settlement the tobacco industry had successfully fought and defeated every liability claim. The most audacious defense was that because everyone had long known tobacco and cancer were related manufacturers could not be responsible for the consumption of a lawful product. claimed the companies, citing an old legal concept, “to a willing person, no injury is done.”
The prevailing view for many years was that the tobacco companies were immune to liability because they had the cash, industry-funded “research” and political power to grind down any opponent. But