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News Roundup: Deborah Shank V. Wal-Mart
Check out all of the news on the tragic Deborah Shank vs. Wal-Mart case. The story is becoming a major public relations problem for Wal-Mart, as well it should. Let’s make sure no one forgets what Wal-Mart is trying to do to the Shanks. Click here to donate to Wal-Mart Watch’s fundraising drive for the Shank family.
12/01/2007
Wal-Mart sues incapacitated employee—Tell them what you think! [BloggingStocks]
The legality of the move aside, it’s appalling on a moral level. WalMartWatch has more information available, and also collecting donations to aid the family. That site sums it up well: This holiday season, Wal-Mart rolled out a new slogan: “Save money. Live better.” But who lives better with Wal-Mart’s low prices? Clearly, it isn’t Wal-Mart employees like Deborah Shank.
11/30/2007
Wal-Mart Takes Image Hit From Shank Case [The Morning News of Northwest Arkansas]
Wal-Mart won a lawsuit against a former employee, injured in an accident that left her brain damaged, divorced and penniless, for reimbursement from her medical care. But public relations experts say the cost to the company’s image may outweigh the $470,000 it received for repayment from Debbie Shank’s care...Union-funded Wal-Mart Watch on Tuesday sent out a letter to e-mail subscribers soliciting donations to the family, and has not only raised nearly $5,000, which the organization will match, it has been overwhelmed with e-mail responses to the case.
11/29/2007
Wal-Mart has the legal high ground in this matter as it has successfully pursued its claim to a federal appellate court. In so doing, however, it has also claimed the moral low ground. Wal-Mart argues that it has a fiduciary responsibility to its medical plan and shareholders, but this is mere obfuscation. Companies rarely resort to recovery from such tragedies, precisely because it is unseemly. The fact that Wal-Mart feels unrestrained and unrepentant in its pursuit for company justice is a shocking indictment of our culture and of this company.
11/28/2007
“Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott’s decision to take away the money that Mrs. Shank would use for her medical expenses represents the kind of failure of moral leadership that we have sadly come to expect from him,” said David Nassar, Wal-Mart Watch Executive Director. “The Shanks are a hard-working American family - the kind that Lee Scott currently claims Wal-Mart helps to ‘save money and live better.’ Unfortunately, the Shank family is doing neither.”
Injured Wal-Mart Employee Case Sparks Outrage, Donation Fund [Springdale Morning News (Ark.)]
The case of a former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employee left brain damaged and wheelchair-bound after a collision with a semi-trailer truck, then forced to return the damages awarded for her future medical care back to Wal-Mart, has stirred national outrage over a case seen as an insurance nightmare where Wal-Mart is the bogeyman...Wal-Mart Watch took action, establishing on Tuesday a donation fund for the family through its Web site, amid ongoing debates of legal and moral questions raised by the case.
As Wal-Mart publicly touts its new health care plan and pays big dollars for holiday public relations campaigns in attempts to bolster its bad reputation, this story once again exposes the company’s poor business practices and total disregard for the health and welfare of its employees.
11/24/2007
Wal-Mart Sues Brain-Damaged Employee; Wins Her Lawsuit Settlement Money [Shortnews.com (Germany)]
After Deborah Shank was left brain-damaged and in a wheelchair because of a collision with a semi truck, her family won a $700,000 settlement from the trucking company, reduced to about $400,000 after legal fees. Then Wal-Mart found out about it. Shank, a former Wal-Mart employee, was sued by the company for $470,000 to reimburse its insurance company for Shank’s medical bills. Now in a nursing home, Shank relies on Medicare and Social Security to pay for around-the-clock care.
11/21/2007
Would You Work for Wal-Mart? [Forbes]
Inside the byzantine world of health insurance there is a cottage industry of companies that specialize in recouping money from various parties, whether it’s hospitals going after patients, doctors fighting insurance companies, or insurance companies making claims against car insurance companies.
Wal-mart’s lawsuit: legal, but wrong [Los Angeles Times]
Deborah Shank’s story would have been sad enough, considering the devastating injuries she suffered in a traffic accident seven years ago. Nevertheless, Wal-Mart found a way to add a brutal coda.
Woman settles over brain damage causing accident, but Wal-Mart gets the money [BloggingStocks]
This is one of the most despicable, inhumane stories I’ve seen about Wal-Mart in awhile, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal. Basically, a woman was left with permanent brain damage at the age of 45 after an accident with a semi-trailer truck. She was recently awarded a $700,000 settlement but then her employer, Wal-Mart, sued her for the money to reimburse itself for the money it spent on her medical costs.
11/20/2007
Accident Victims Face Grab for Legal Winnings [Wall Street Journal]
A collision with a semi-trailer truck seven years ago left 52-year-old Deborah Shank permanently brain-damaged and in a wheelchair. Her husband, Jim, and three sons found a small source of solace: a $700,000 accident settlement from the trucking company involved. After legal fees and other expenses, the remaining $417,000 was put in a special trust. It was to be used for Mrs. Shank’s care. Instead, all of it is now slated to go to Mrs. Shank’s former employer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Subrogation Nation? [Wall Street Journal Blog]
Wal-Mart Seeks Portion of Injured Employee’s Settlement [Wall Street Journal Blog]
Posted by Eric Bull on Monday, December 03, 2007
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COMMENTS
Walmart used to keep a framed picture of David Glass in its legal conference room. Below David’s picture was the question “What did we do wrong?”
Of course, anyone with WalMart that took the position WalMart did anything wrong shot their career in the head.
Thus WalMarts culture was perpetuated through a ruthless legal team. Walmart never settled. Walmart never stop spending money to defend itself.
WalMart’s board of directors lacks wisdom. No one ever accused WalMart of not being smart. But there is a lack of wisdom at the core, i.e., Rob Walton.
Bubba in Toad Suck, AR
Monday, December 03 at 11:09 PM
The love of money is a departure away from the love of your neighbor and returns as war upon them. This behavior of greed is seen in the selfish attitude that carefully evades any sense of responsibility to community or the workforce. The selfish motive disregards others and will not hear of or perceive the detrimental effects of the love of money and its actions and attittudes.
The WalMart/Shank case is a perfect example.
Subrogation is not health insurance. It is a concealed alteration (subsitution, transference, displacement) of your legal rights under the color of health care. You have assigned your legal right of recovery and damages unsuspectingly to non health care providers.
The ‘policy’ acted only as a ‘loan product’ ultimately for legal recovery for WalMart for which Shank paid an interest rate ‘premium’ to use. When not used, health care insurance premiums are not refunded to the policy holders under a ‘risk versus claim’ dollar calculation and estimate of payouts and profit system. This is the basic method of insurance companies making a profit from policy premiums. Collectively the premiums are pooled together (and invested) for the asset base to payout claims on health care expenditures. This is not what WalMart wants to do. In the Shanks case the premium was ultimately taken as profit only for the issuer (WalMart) without the intent of health care at all but rather the seizure of a legal right through ‘subrogation’ producing additional profits beyond the premium collections themselves and the asset base for health care payouts. You will note that the health care policy that WalMart suckered Shank into buying does not cover her health care costs now and that policy does not now even exist for her health care. She paid her premiums on a health care insurance policy from WalMart. Now WalMart has ‘dumped’ her onto the state for her health care costs.
Recovery of health care cost from a ‘health insurance policy’ payout is beyound the scope of the advertised claim of ‘health care insurance’. Financial recovery for the issuer and ‘subrogation’ remains only as a concealed legal concept. It is not about health care, medical practice, medications or doctor visits and hospitalization etc. Nobody would buy this ‘health insurance’ loan product if they knew and understood the reality of the scam. Therefore the concealment and defrauding of the Shanks and the subsequent embarrassment from and for the ‘love of money’ psychopaths at WalMart HQ in Bentonville.
The dysfunctional attittude of this type of ‘insurance deception’ expells labor as having no right of place to existence in the overall WalMart economic community except as a wage slave. You can work in this community and even be injured like Deborah Shank, but you can’t survive here legally, financially or medically in this WalMart economic community bounded by extremist bigoted capitalism seeking only to exploit people as a commodity.
WalMart is a differential poverty engine. The accumulation of wealth wanting to seperate itself from labor and exploit other people as if they are less human.
The rampage of selfish corporation ‘rights’ ultimately leads to suicidal and murderous expression from the whoredom of immorality that breeds the ‘love of money’. Without any moral foundation and unrestrained with false advertising, the psychopath individual or business model parades around society taking all it can devour and providing the minimum in return sistered with direct and deferred types of destruction. This is not ‘creative destruction’, it is only destruction. When caught in practice and/or philosophically the usual excuses are attempts at historical revisionism and claims of others doing the same thing. Corporate psychopath indulgence for the screwing over of the Shanks becomes a WalMart ‘industry standard’.
This brand of WalMart capitalism is the ‘love of money’ at war against ‘love thy neighbor’. WalMart is a type of anti-christ business model polluting social and economic life and causing particular and express trouble in the struggle of mankind on the earth….
continued-
SanDiegoView in
Monday, December 03 at 11:33 PM
From Sam Walton-
“On the other hand, let me say this: anytime we have had real trouble, or the serious possibility of a union coming into the company, it has been because management has failed, because we have not listened to our associates, or because we have mistreated them.” (p. 130)
“We have more trouble coming up with educated people who want to work in our industry, or with people of the right moral character and integrity.” (p.137)
“A lot of what goes on these days with high-flying companies and these overpaid CEO’s who’re really just looting from the top and aren’t watching out for anybody but themselves really upsets me.” (p. 9)
Special thanks to ScrewedbyWal-Mart in Anytown, America for the compilation of quotes. “All quotes are taken from the book Sam Walton, Made in America: My Story by Sam Walton with John Huey, published by Doubleday in 1992.”
WalMart- Ethical and moral relativism in finance sets us apart from American common sense and social responsibilty. The ‘love of money’ makes us a distictive fully functioning psychopath business model. In addition to wishing all of America a Merry consumerism ‘Christmas’, the Shank family can go to hell.
“The Shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as a destroyer of liberty.” Abraham Lincoln
SanDiegoView in
Monday, December 03 at 11:34 PM
“What did we do wrong?”
Perhaps that should have been a pic of Tom Coughlin.
When I first started watching Wal-Mart it was pretty much as Bubba describes it. Never settle, never quit. Grind ‘em down with a battalion of ambulance chasers and ‘friendly’ courts.
Things are a little different today. The proliferation of class action suits plus increased public scrutiny has led to fewer wins and bigger loses. Even when Wal-Mart wins, like the Shank case, they end up losing in the end.
Ken V in Texas
Tuesday, December 04 at 04:47 AM
full of bs sdv
matthew vantress in gresham oregon
Wednesday, December 05 at 06:02 AM
If SDV was full of bs Matthew which he isn’t, he would still be better off than just being a total idiot like you. You shouldn’t put Oregon down in your user ID, you are giving that state a bad name.
Sick Of Wal-Mart in
Wednesday, December 05 at 07:08 AM
yes he is sick of i have worked in retail and union grocery both unlike you and know my shit.he quotes dishonest govt fools like edelman and internet blogs which lie all the time.
matthew vantress in gresham oregon
Wednesday, December 05 at 06:08 PM
matthew vantress Who are you trying to fool?
Agent 86 in
Thursday, December 06 at 01:40 AM
no one agent 86 i know my stuff unlike you and i have exp working in retail and union grocery
matthew vantress in gresham oregon
Thursday, December 06 at 05:49 AM
I have yet to see matthew vantress in gresham oregon demonstrate any knowledge about retail at all yet. You must be some type of fraud. Union jobs have always been very good paying jobs. I know from experience starting more than 25 years ago!
Gene in Redondo Beach
Thursday, December 06 at 09:30 AM
Gene in : If you would like a directory of Matt-resse’s voluminous works,just go to Google. He has extensive mastery on many subjects.
ddrb in
Thursday, December 06 at 09:41 AM
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=119188108018815400
Here is some more rantings from the ever (un)popular Matthew Vantress. I can’t believe that anyone can be this stupid. Is he for real or is just some lonely person starving for attention. I mean seriously, how can anyone or anything for that matter be so ignorant? It is funny how Rockwood Randy puts Matthew in his place on the above listed site.
Sick of WM in
Thursday, December 06 at 02:27 PM
...lonely person starving for attention.
Bingo! Give that man a cigar!
Ken V in Texas
Thursday, December 06 at 03:37 PM
Sick of: Hopefully,if ANYONE wants WalMatt ,all Matt,,all the time,they can go ELSEWHERE to luxuriate in his prolific pontifications -ANYWHERE but here,please,God!!!!!!!!
ddrb in
Thursday, December 06 at 03:38 PM
I happen to like Matthew’s presence, here.
It makes a nice compliment to the usual day-in/day-out BS…
bbrd in
Thursday, December 06 at 10:31 PM
gene i worked for k-mart pal and union grocers and saw how they operate buddy and its not pretty.dont tell i dont know about retail the hell i dont.gene the ufcw union grocery workers at the bottom end earn less than their walmart counterparts and have many more on welfare and food stamps than wm has.union grocers gene pay shit wages and treat their workers like crap and take advantage of them by not paying living wages and so do the unions.gene if unions are so great and do so much then why is union membership down across america then?if you dont believe me then the afl-cio stats will back up what i say because i read them and their own stats say union membership is declining across the united states.gene ufcw union grocers dfont pay good wages the unions tell their members to accept crappy contractswith very paltry to no wage increases and less benefits.i dont want to hear about how great unions are even though i am a union member now i dont like most of their tactics like supporting political candidates with our dues money.
matthew vantress in gresham oregon
Friday, December 07 at 04:29 AM
Ok I call for all anti WM posters on WMW to boycott Matthew. I say we also boycott WMW unless they boot Matthew from the site. Strength in numbers, lets get this done. Nobody acknowledge the existence of Matthew Vantress and everyone refuse to post unless Matthew is banned from WMW. We can do this people.
Sick of WM in
Friday, December 07 at 09:25 AM
bb in:Perhaps your time and interests would be better served elsewhere,in that case.
ddrb in
Friday, December 07 at 02:08 PM
I happen to like Matthew’s presence, here.
As if being pro Wal-Mart wasn’t enough proof of your lack of good taste.
Ken V in Texas
Friday, December 07 at 05:32 PM
Ken V : That comeback illustrates ,for me, why you’re the Master King Kenzu-Touche!!!
ddrb in
Friday, December 07 at 05:38 PM
I read the WSJ article and was appalled at Walmart’s choice to pursue their subrogation right. It is now up to the consumer to make a choice to shop there or not. I have explained subrogation and Walmart’s actions to many of my friends and encouraged them not to shop there and to communicatate their outrage. Its very straightforward.
Rebecca Reddoch in San Diego, CA
Sunday, December 09 at 03:28 PM
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G’night
fesrts in Germany
Monday, December 17 at 02:49 PM
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