Human Resource Selection 9th Edition by Marianne Jennings

Exercise 1

On the day after Thanksgiving, November 28, 2008, Walmart held a nationwide sale of a limited number of sharply discounted televisions, computers, and video game sets. The "blitz sale" had been advertised heavily in newspapers and on television. At the Valley Stream Walmart store in Long Island, New York, 2,000 shoppers lined up hours before the scheduled 6 a.m. store opening, forming a line at a place marked by a handwritten sign, "Blitz Line Starts Here." The crowd became unruly at one point and the store manager called the police. However, the police left after concluding that things were under control. Shortly afterwards, at 5 a.m., the crowd broke through the glass doors of the store in a stampede. Jdimytai Damour, a Walmart maintenance worker, was trampled by the crowd and died from asphyxiation. OSHA has imposed a $7,000 fine on Walmart for its failure to take appropriate steps to control the crowd. Walmart is fighting the fine because it maintains the stampede and the trampling were not foreseeable simply because Walmart held a post-Thanksgiving day blitz sale. Walmart has argued that OSHA is asking it to predict events and that there were, at that time, no laws or rules on crowd control or so-called "blitz sales" (sales in which there are a limited number of items at a reduced price). Walmart's lawyers argued, "If this was a foreseeable event, why did the police feel comfortable in leaving the scene?"
Walmart has already entered into an agreement with the Nassau County, New York, district attorney to adopt crowd control policies at its 92 stores in New York, create a $400,000 fund to compensate trampling victims, and donate $1.5 million to various community organizations in Nassau County. Walmart also implemented crowdcontrol policies at its stores nationwide. Evaluate the duty, breach of duty, and foreseeability issues in the Long Island stampede. Be sure to discuss whether Walmart breached any duty to the maintenance worker and why Walmart would push back against the small fine. 5