Wal-Mart Trampling: Who’s at fault?
On the radio this morning, the host posed the question of who should be held responsible for the trampling death of Jdimytai Damour. Damour stood at 6 feet, 5 inches tall, and weighed in at 270 pounds. He was hired through a temp agency, and had been working for Wal-Mart for about a week.
So, should Wal-Mart be held responsible for the death, or should the stampeding shoppers be held responsible?
In my view, the mob, and the store are equally culpable, however, it’s not that simple.
If you’re going to prosecute the shoppers, exactly which shoppers are you going to prosecute? Only the ones that you can identify as having stepped on the man? If we take that approach, is the first person to step on him as guilty as the last, given than no one person stepping on him caused his death? What about people who stepped on him after he had already been killed? How can they be held responsible for the death of a man who was already dead before they stepped on him? Then there is the larger issue of showing that the shoppers intended to harm the employee. With no intent to harm, you’re looking at is involuntary manslaughter.
Those people that ran over the employee have the reasonable defense that they had no choice, because the crowd behind them was pushing them forward. They can argue that they physically could not stop. They could also argue that to stop to help the man, would have led to being trampled themselves. There are too many ways to defend each individual person in the mob, when in reality, the mob as a whole is the blunt instrument that caused this man’s death. What is the state going to do? Track down all 2,000 shoppers that were outside the store that morning, and charge them all with involuntary manslaughter? It’s just not feasible to charge them all, and it’s too hard to prove any individual guilty, so it’s just simply not going to happen.
Now what about Wal-Mart? This man was placed at the front of the store because the store managers thought his large frame would act as a deterrent to a stampede. The man had no training in crowd control or security, and as I noted above, had been working at Wal-Mart for only a week prior to this. Now let’s take a step back and look at any other industry. If you get a job at a meat packing plant, and are not given proper training and a slicer takes off your hand, guess who’s responsible? The employer. The employer is responsible for injuries that occur on the job as a result of substandard training. Likewise, Wal-Mart is responsible for not training this employee how to handle a large crowd. For this reason alone, Wal-Mart should be held liable. However, this is not the only reason. If the floor was wet, and a customer slipped and fell, Wal-Mart would be liable — why not for the injury of an employee in the store? Other retailers utilize numbering systems to only let a certain number of customers into the store at a time. Other retailers paid to have police present at the time of the opening to remove from the store anyone running. Other retailers prepared for the mass of people at their doors. Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, put up some barricades, and had police drop by an hour before opening. In my view, that’s criminal negligence.
The family has every right to sue Wal-Mart for wrongful death, and I hope they win.
^Z
I have to say both are at fault.
WalMart likes frenzied shoppers who’ll do anything to buy everything in the store.
BUT our country has turned into a material worshiping one, and most people here don’t give a crap about other people when it comes to Grand Theft Auto IV for $15 off or that new pair of blue jeans.