Excaliber wrote:When the interests of a company in protecting itself from liability conflicts with the safety of entry level employees, companies will almost always act in the interest of the company.
The cold calculus is that the impact of a worker's death on their workers' compensation costs is far less than the impact of a liability suit arising from an employee's use of a gun to defend himself.
Have an employee wrongfully shoot an innocent bystander with an errant shot.
Clearly the company is liable.
I am personally aware of 4 wrongful death judgments in the last year that were north of $40 million.
I do not blame companies, as they are acting rationally and properly to safeguard shareholder's interests. Let me say that again, companies are acting
rationally and properly given today's legal environment.
I blame the unholy partnership between the Democratic Party and the Plaintiff lawyers. I remember sitting in a legal seminar last October where one of the presentations was by a plaintiff attorney discussing how they will achieve the first $100 million wrongful death payout.
If people want corporations to change, then the legal climate must be changed first. Fighting such change, of course, is the largest priority of the Plaintiff bar, which has also been the single largest donor source for the Democratic Party for decades.