Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Wal-Mart Finally Shamed Into Doing the Right Thing


Wal-Mart has dropped its lawsuit to recover medical benefits paid to disabled ex-worker, Debbie Shank.

Shank was left brain-damaged after her car was struck by a tractor-trailer. As a Wal-Mart employee she was eligible for some medical benefits. Meanwhile the Shanks sued the trucker and recovered just under half a million dollars. At that point Wal-Mart stepped in and claimed all of the settlement in reimbursement of expenses already paid.

Wal-Mart sued and won in court after court. Last month the US Supreme Court refused to hear the Shanks' appeal.

In recent weeks CNN, NBC and MSNBC grabbed the story and ran with it, literally beating Wal-Mart over the head with it. The negative publicity was huge and the effect on the profits must have been hard felt for Wal-Mart, which had played Scrooge to the Shanks for so long, to finally buckle and fold.

Shortly after Wal-Mart bagged the first in its strings of legal victories in this case, the Shanks' son Jeremy was killed while serving with US forces in Iraq.

1 comment:

  1. Yes, that would be typical of Wal* Mart, so much to that the new way to describe a anti-social/destructive activity should be "so wal*mart" as in "s/he beats homeless people, that is "so wal*mart".

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