Wal-Mart Fighting $7,000 Fine in Trampling Case

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

Wal-Mart Stores has spent a year and more than a million dollars in legal fees battling a $7,000 fine that federal safety officials assessed after shoppers trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death at a store on Long Island on the day after Thanksgiving in 2008.

The mystery, federal officials say, is why Wal-Mart is fighting so hard against such a modest fine.

It is not as if Wal-Mart has not already taken action to address any missteps and prevent another such accident. Three weeks before the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration ordered the fine, Wal-Mart, seeking to avoid criminal charges, reached a settlement with the Nassau County, N.Y., district attorney that called for the company to adopt new crowd management techniques in all 92 of its stores in New York State. At the time, Wal-Mart also agreed to create a $400,000 fund for customers injured in the stampede and to donate $1.5 million to various community programs in Nassau County.

More recently, the company announced improved crowd-control policies for all its United States stores to try to prevent such an accident from happening again.

But in fighting the federal fine, Wal-Mart is arguing that the government is improperly trying to define “crowd trampling” as an occupational hazard that retailers must take action to prevent.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/business/07walmart.html

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This is the case involving Jdimytai Damour.

[napi21]

1. My guess is that they're afraid of any future suits. nt

[Proletariatprincess]

2. Walmart is the enemy of OSHA and all worker protection

They would fight this even if it was $1. It doesn't have to make sense...it is a matter visceral hatred of working people...even it's customers.
Damn, but I hate Walmart and all the damage it has done to this country.

[sce56]

3. Bingo!

I have not been in a wally world in 4 years and then only because I could not find the thing I was looking for any where else!

[saigon68]

4. A Corporate THUG dressed in a Suit of Armor

These Corporate Executives running Walmart are like Mafia Dons.

They want no regulation of anything that applies to them and no taxes either.

They make billions through slavery (using children to sew their crappy shirts) and exploitation (low starvation wages)

[Selena Harris]

9. Maybe WalMart can buy Blackwater...

I read that Xe/Blackwater is up for sale..and Eric Prince is moving to Dubai.

Funny there's no WalMarts in the Middle East, come to think of it.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. If WM pays the fine, its insurance liability premium rises exorbitantly.

[depakid]

6. Why there's any "mystery" given the Justice Department's actions and omissions

since Obama took office is beyond me

There's been nothing less than a concerted effort to ensure that there's little or no accountability for corporate criminals- so WallMart's just saying: "Hey, why should we pay anything?" -when damn near no one else does.

And, indeed- from their perspective, why should they?

[SocialistLez]

7. That is a drop in the bucket. They won't even miss that $7,000

Greedy bastards.

[Selena Harris]

8. WalMart is the BP of retailing

Both are offshoring disasters!

[NobleCynic]

10. ...this is sounding more and more like a bad business decision.

Whatever piece of middle management responsible for this idiocy should be promptly fired. I don't get it, are they trying to fight against precedent being set for when they allow people to be trampled to death next Christmas?