Thursday, July 08, 2010
Wal-Mart Thanksgiving Day Crowd
Following the post-Thanksgiving Day sales rush in 2008 that killed one of its employees on Long Island, NY, Wal-Mart took a number of steps to ensure that such a tragic event did not occur again at one of its stores. The retail giant also created a $400,000 fund for customers injured in the stampede and donated $1.5 million to various community programs in Nassau County.
But Wal-Mart has steadfastly refused to pay a $7,000 fine levied by the federal government for the incident that killed 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour—even going so far as to spend an estimated $2 million in legal fees to fight the penalty from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Wal-Mart executives are opposing the federal fine because they don’t want to set the precedent of defining “crowd trampling” as an occupational hazard that retailers must try to prevent.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Wal-Mart Fighting $7,000 Fine in Trampling Case (by Steven Greenhouse, New York Times)
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