Monday, March 24, 2008

The Roberts' Court

"The family of a Missouri woman must reimburse Wal-Mart for nearly a half-million dollars in medical expenses now that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review her case."


The story is heartbreaking: a woman who stocked shelves at Wal-Mart was in a car accident where a semi destroyed her mini-van and left her with severe brain injuries. Luckily, she had been paying for health care insurance and her expenses were covered.

That is, until the family sued and won a judgement against the trucking company to obtain funds for her lifelong care. Winning that money gave Wal-Mart the right to sue her for every dollar they paid in health care.

That's right: if you sue and win $1 in damages for your long-term care, your employer can sue you for every dollar they ever paid out to you in health care benefits.

The Roberts' Court refused to hear their appeal. It is obvious to me why they would refuse. The Court is so tilted to the right, I'll be shocked if an employee-friendly decision comes out of this court in the next 20 years. The Court knows this, and if this was a case where Wal-Mart was suing a drug-using black or Hispanic woman; they'd probably hear it. But given the woman's son just died in Iraq, the father was just treated for prostate cancer, and Wal-Mart is asking for more money they received in the settlement -- there's no way the Court wants to get involved in the PR shit-storm that should rightly emanate from this travesty of justice.

Little do they know, were this case heard and decided, most of the public wouldn't even notice; and FauxNews would heartlessly smear the family to mute those voices that did give a damn.

STLtoday - Brain-damaged ex-worker must pay $470,000 to Wal-Mart

1 comment:

shrimplate said...

Just another reason why I will never ever shop at WalMart.