Shareholders in public companies can easily sell their stock and invest in something else if it seems to be the future. And employees can (not so easily) find another job. A company doesn't need to be eternal. Once upon a time, wasn't a company required to have a fixed purpose and maybe a time limit?
Huh? Under what scenario would the shareholders get sued for selling their stock?
Also, people complain too much about lawsuits versus corporations. Wells Fargo just took a $1.6 billion charge for legal expenses. That's something like 700 person-years at $400/hr, 16 hrs/day. The stupidity isn't the system that allows the lawsuits, it's the corporate mindlessness that wastes the equivalent of 1,000 people's lifetimes on arguing that they didn't do anything wrong instead of just saying "welp you got us".
