Home Depot Tries to Avoid Paying Damages to Customers

Knight-Ridder reports Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli and President Bush took turns bashing trial lawyers to waves of audience laughter at the White House economic summit yesterday. Nardelli said, "What you have today is business on one side, and you've got the trial lawyers on the other side. You've got deep pockets colliding with shallow principles." But if you ask scores of ordinary American shoppers and workers killed or maimed at Home Depot -- or hurt by poisonous Home Depot products - they might not think bashing people's legal rights and refusing to protect innocent victims is so funny. As the Atlanta Business Chronicle has reported, Home Depot reported 185 customer injuries a week in 1998 and has since refused media inquiries into its safety record. The company also uses its vast legal team to bully victims into signing confidentiality agreements about their injuries. The federal government "has recorded nine worker deaths in the past four years at Home Depot stores" and, in 2002, recorded a "45 percent jump" in workplace safety violations. In one high-profile accident, NASA astronaut Jean-Loup Chretien's shoulder was crushed when a 68-pound drill press fell on him from more than 10 feet up -- ending his career. Because Home Depot refuses to take adequate safety precautions, "They are creating canyons of death and injury and inviting customers to walk down them," said one attorney representing families of victims. According to that attorney, the company has made a management decision that it is cheaper to pay claims to injured customers than pay for the necessary safety changes. Read the full expose in the Atlanta Business Journal.

•   Home Depot's CEO, Bob Nardelli, will need no introduction when he sits with President Bush on the panel on "lawsuit abuse" today. Nardelli hosted a fundraiser with Bush in May, pulling in $3.2 million for GOP candidates. Nardelli's company, Home Depot, has donated $1.5 million to the Republican Party since 1999 and "during that time, no candidate has benefited from Home Depot's largesse more than Bush." But Home Depot has received a great return on its investment: in October, Congress secured a $44 million subsidy for Chinese ceiling fans, of which Home Depot is one of the main beneficiaries. Nardelli and his wife, Susan, havedonated $76,000 to GOP coffers.