Home Depot Tries to Avoid Paying Damages to Customers
Wednesday, December 22, 2004 at 04:34AM
TheSpook
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.
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