Walmart Means Low Morals

[Eliaures]

Walmart is undecidedly evil. Of all the instances of corporate malfeasance, this company seems to delight in surpassing all the others in acts of jaw dropping callous capitalism. Walmart has sued one of its former employees, Deborah Shank, after she was hit by a truck on their property to recover the health care costs its plan had paid after the accident. Since she had received a small settlement from the trucking company for her continued care, Walmart wanted what she got after legal costs and more. All this from a woman that will have to have round the clock care for the rest of her life and sacrificed a son to Bush's War.

 

[blatantninja]

Walmart has it's issues, and while I certainly hope that they, as a company, do something to help this woman, legally, they are completely in the right. This has been a change over the past decade or so in the legal interpretation of those clauses.

Walmart is not the problem, it needs to be addressed in Congress.

 

[magerette]

Wal Mart still has a choice. Just because it's legal to sue this woman, they are not forced to do so. Are their enormous profits really going to be impacted in any significant way if they don't recover her insurance costs? It's not like they're struggling to survive.

I do agree, though, that there needs to be a legal way to halt this kind of greed. The health care industry and its skyrocketing costs is probably just as much to blame for situations like this arising.

 

[dteowner]

Not to defend Wallyworld here, but you can't pick and choose which people to "attack". If you don't pursue the issue in this case, you set a legal precedent that will keep you from pursuing it ever again. Forever and ever, amen. So while pursuing this case is a PR nightmare (and probably a moral "wrong"), it's the guy 10 years from now that scams the system for 20 times the money over a stubbed toe that you're really trying to stop.

Companies don't generally go out of their way to screw individuals, Eliaures.

 

[Prime Junta]

Besides, we really shouldn't expect companies to behave morally. Companies aren't persons; they're legal fictions. We should expect companies to behave in an economically rational fashion, based on incentives set by the market on the one hand and the law, i.e., democracy, on the other hand. If there are disincentives to behave morally and incentives to behave immorally, then we should expect them to behave immorally.

What we should do is set up legislation that gives companies incentives that align with our wishes as citizens.

 

[blatantninja]

dte is correct. They HAVE to go after this woman, simply because of the legal precendent it sets if they don't. Like I said, Congress needs to address this issue. Walmart is hardly the first and won't be the last to do this. The legal shift away from first and foremost making the victim whole is what caused this.

 

[dteowner]

For the darn fer-ners, you might want to fix that "hole" typo, bn. That might be a bit confusing in translation. The lawyers drove that legal shift, possibly out of concern but more likely out of greed, because "first and foremost" often didn't have the deep pockets. They wanted to keep climbing the ladder until they got to someone/something that could pay a multi-million dollar settlement.

 

[magerette]

Besides, we really shouldn't expect companies to behave morally. Companies aren't persons; they're legal fictions. We should expect companies to behave in an economically rational fashion, based on incentives set by the market on the one hand and the law, i.e., democracy, on the other hand. If there are disincentives to behave morally and incentives to behave immorally, then we should expect them to behave immorally.

I think this is the definition of the Lawful Evil Alignment. Don't any of you guys ever play paladins? (My sarcasm meter has registered a slight fluctuation also)

What we should do is set up legislation that gives companies incentives that align with our wishes as citizens.

Agreed. And actually your point is, as always rational and well taken. I do think that there is a grey area here, though.

Wal Mart may have to stringently protect itself from the legal incursions of the scam artists and slackers by suing, but it can most certainly make a better choice of whom to sue. There's no indication of any abuse of the system by this woman.

But actually,this legal tennis-match doesn't seem to me to be designed to weed out scammers--just to keep lawyers employed shifting money from one company to another and away from the individual, who just becomes a conduit.

I don't see how this discourages fraud. Rather the reverse, imo.

Apparently we really do need health care reform BADLY.

 

[Prime Junta]

I think this is the definition of the Lawful Evil Alignment. Don't any of you guys ever play paladins? (My sarcasm meter has registered a slight fluctuation also)

Never.

And I wasn't being sarcastic.

The trouble is that if any corporation acts against its economic self-interest, it'll be squeezed out of the market by more selfish corporations. (Incidentally, this is one of Marx's central and most durable observations.)

I even suggested a solution to this conundrum -- we, as citizens, set the rules by which the corporations play in the market. We can set up the rules of the market in such a way that they reward moral behavior and punish immoral behavior. In econo-speak, we can align the incentives of the corporations as economic actors, and ourselves as citizens.

 

[magerette]

Yes, and I agreed with your solution--(and sorry, sometimes my sarcasm meter malfunctions.) I do still disagree with your, BN's, dte's and Marx's conclusions about the problem.

I still say this is a 'lawful evil' action(doing harm to someone to benefit yourself "because you can" is pretty much my definition of evil--subjective, I know) and if being evil as an individual is punishable by society, but being a member of a group that makes a profit through evil actions is okay, then somewhere the moral compass has been bent.

I don't believe that Wal-Mart "had" to pursue this policy, I believe they routinely operate in this manner across the board as a matter of course not because they are forced to, but because they choose to and also of course because, as Prime J points out, they are legally allowed to. I find it hard to believe that treating your employees fairly automatically puts your business on the road to liquidation, or that the amount of money involved in this case or ten cases like it is anything more than a raindrop in the ocean to Wal-Mart's bottom line.

But that's just my opinion, of course. Any business I ran would fail in a week.

 

[dteowner]

Our legal system doesn't allow for common sense, magerette, nor situational decisions. Due to the system of precedents, you're only allowed one path, and it must be one-size-fits-all and uniformly applied. That's got nothing to do with Walmart's alignment check. The failing in this scenario lies solely with the lawyers.

Now, Walmart has shown a trend over many situations to squeeze the pennies until Lincoln squeals, so perhaps they are choosing the path of maximum profit and maximum legal standing when a slightly gentler (albeit more expensive) approach might have been adequate. Of course, they haven't progressed from one store to ruling the world by being nice. They've been shrewd in their business decisions and utterly ruthless in controlling/limiting expenses. That's their job as a corporation, and they've done very well at it.

 

[Corwin]

In similar situations here, it's not unknown for big corps to pursue little people for legal reasons, but under the pressure of the public gaze and good PR, then turn around and personally 'recompense' the little victim. Whether you Walmart is so inclined is yet to be seen, but the PR both good and bad could be worth FAR more than the individual case!! Out TV current affairs shows LOVE to broadcast these issues whenever they can!!

 

[Eliaures]

I'm sorry, but I don't believe that corporations HAVE to act without feeling. There are plenty of corporations that "do the right thing". Walmart has historically not. Corporations may be seen as unthinking machines of industry and capitalism, but they are run by people. I find it hard to believe that some astute and semi-intelligent person at Walmart could not have questioned this at least as a potential PR blunder.

It reminds me of the scene in "Saving Private Ryan" whereby some low level bureaucracy drone saw that several Ryans had died during the same week and instead of sloughing it off as coincidence, she did a little research and found they were all from the same family. She could have dropped it as a personal tragedy that only she knew about at her department, but she pushed it up the line and they "did the right thing". Yes, I know it's fiction, but to me it represents what can be done on a personal level at a big, unfeeling bureaucracy.

The latest news is that Walmart have done the right thing, but only after a firestorm of bad PR from newspapers and other entities. I have no admiration for a company that maximizes profits at the expense of everything else. I think Bhutan has the right idea with it's Gross National Happiness as opposed to the West's Gross National Product. Has our emphasis on growth lead to greater happiness? Statistics say no even though we are doing quite well as a nation financially.

 

[V7]

Our legal system doesn't allow for common sense, magerette, nor situational decisions. Due to the system of precedents, you're only allowed one path, and it must be one-size-fits-all and uniformly applied. That's got nothing to do with Walmart's alignment check. The failing in this scenario lies solely with the lawyers.

Actually the way precedents are used in common law is precisely the reverse of what you're suggesting, precedents can be overturned or modified by subsequent cases. In this example any judge worth having would find a reason for differentiating between the employee hit by a truck and your prospective fraudster (probably the fraud).

A precedent isn't even binding beyond the court's jurisdiction.

And as for common sense in law, that’s what the judge and/or jury is for - it doesn't always work as intended and the politicians can screw it up with legislation, but that’s a political not legal wrench.

 

[Prime Junta]

I don't believe that Wal-Mart "had" to pursue this policy, I believe they routinely operate in this manner across the board as a matter of course not because they are forced to, but because they choose to and also of course because, as Prime J points out, they are legally allowed to. I find it hard to believe that treating your employees fairly automatically puts your business on the road to liquidation, or that the amount of money involved in this case or ten cases like it is anything more than a raindrop in the ocean to Wal-Mart's bottom line.

But if it didn't, it wouldn't be Wal-Mart -- it'd be Costco.

Wal-Mart's business model is to keep the costs down -- everywhere -- and pass along the savings to its customers as lower prices. That means paying the lowest amount possible to the fewest number of employees possible, driving the hardest possible bargain with suppliers -- and, what with US tort law being what it is, acting pre-emptively when it comes to possibilities of being sued.

Costco's business model is to pay its employees decently, train them to be friendly and knowledgeable in customer service, and hire enough of them that Costco's customers feel well served -- and therefore be able to charge higher prices than Wal-Mart.

Costco's median customer earns nearly twice as much as Wal-Mart's median customer -- and Wal-Mart has a lot more customers.

The trouble is that K-Mart's business model is very much like Wal-Mart's, only it's not quite as good at it.

That means that if Wal-Mart decided *not* to pursue cost savings with absolute ruthlessness, its costs would go up and it would start to compete with Costco in a smaller market segment, with K-Mart moving into its market segment... by pursuing cost savings with absolute ruthlessness. IOW, we'd end up exactly where we started.

This particular case illustrates some of the problems with American tort law, since it provides incentives for ambulance-chasing on the one hand, and extreme pre-emptive legal action against ambulance-chasers on the other, with this highly unfortunate individual getting squashed between the two. It's an example of politically set incentives being misaligned with our interests as citizens (and, I'm fairly certain, Wal-Mart's interests as a legal fiction.)

 

[dteowner]

And as for common sense in law, that’s what the judge and/or jury is for - it doesn't always work as intended and the politicians can screw it up with legislation, but that’s a political not legal wrench.

Puhleeze. The juries are the ones recommending a $20mil award for a wayward hangnail, so I wouldn't look there for common sense. They think their stickin' it to the man and helping out the little guy, not realizing where that pile of money comes from.

The whole point of the precedent system is to try to convince the judge and jury to apply the same solution again. It regularly leads to appeals if precedents are ignored or overturned. There's whole legal libraries dedicated to doing the same stuff over and over, so I think you're way off saying the system is designed to work case-by-case.

As for this specific case, I had a long roleplay half written but lost my enthusiasm. I summarize it with a short snippet:
Oily von Shyster- So, you chose not to pursue legal action on the previous case but brought the full force of the Walmart legal department to bear on my poor client?
Son of Sam- That was a different situation. As an innocent victim, she didn't deserve legal action on our part, even though it was legally appropriate.
OvS- So you're picking and choosing whom you will help and whom you will not? You coldhearted corporate bastard! Who are you to judge who is deserving and who is not? Walmart makes 600zillion dollars every minute and you'd deny my client a mere $20mil for this grievous wayward hangnail injury, which will scar him for the rest of his life? Is Walmart that greedy? Who are you to decide what my client's pain is worth? How do you sleep at night?

 

[Remus]

Well, Wal-Mart suddenly saying the ex-employee can keep the money as the company is now modifying its health care plan. Apparently they do have someone in the company that know about PR and corporate image, eh? (or only when the case is widely reported in the media...or as an "advertisement").


http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/law/04/02/walmart.decision/?iref=hpmostpop

 

[blatantninja]

PJ,

I disagree on the Costco-Walmart comparison. I've heard this before about how great Costco is in comparison. Well, I switched last year to Costco, mainly because I live practically next to one.

The prices are identical. The policies are identical. And most important, the employees are identical. They are no more helpful, pleasant, or available than any Sam's club employee I have ever met. They may get paid better, I don't know, but from my experience, if that is true, it doesn't translate into any better service.

 

[Prime Junta]

PJ,

I disagree on the Costco-Walmart comparison. I've heard this before about how great Costco is in comparison. Well, I switched last year to Costco, mainly because I live practically next to one.

The prices are identical. The policies are identical. And most important, the employees are identical. They are no more helpful, pleasant, or available than any Sam's club employee I have ever met. They may get paid better, I don't know, but from my experience, if that is true, it doesn't translate into any better service.

Well, I haven't been to a Costco (or a Wal-Mart, for that matter) since my last trip to the States in 2004, so I'll take your word for it.

The argument remains, though -- I'm sure there's *some* company out there serving the higher-income demographic with better service and higher prices.

 

[JDR13]

The argument remains, though -- I'm sure there's *some* company out there serving the higher-income demographic with better service and higher prices.

Well it sure isn't Best Buy!