Walmart pays fine for murder

May 27, 4:37 PMDC Corporate Ethics ExaminerJim Cunningham

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Here’s a follow-up to something I wrote a while back.

The Right likes to stick pins in what they refer to as “frivolous lawsuits” and limit damages that courts can impose on big corporations that lose lawsuits. Well, here’s a good example of why the threat of lawsuit is sometimes the only thing that keeps the big boys honest.

Remember when someone DIED in a Walmart last November during a “Black Friday” stampede? Well, it seems Walmart was finally made to “pay” for its lack of responsibility that led to the incident – and there’s a reason why I put the word “pay” in quotation marks.

The death… could have been prevented, federal officials said Tuesday as they proposed fining the world’s largest retailer $7,000 — as much money as it makes in about 18 seconds.”

OSHA, the government agency that looks into workplace accidents fined Walmart $7,000 for “inadequate crowd management”. Granted, it was the largest amount OSHA is allowed to fine for the particular offense, but it does show that OSHA is rather poor tool when employed against corporate greed and its dastardly results.

The lawsuit by the victim’s family is still in the works. Perhaps that, and the bad press that continues even now, will be enough to sting Walmart into calculating public safety into its cost/benefit analysis next fall.