First we kill the Lawyers

[ben_meyers]

I know we are supposed to hate Walmart, but for many years Walmart and Sam's club would mount and balance "loose" tires brought in by a customer. I have used this service in the past and their pricing was very good.

Last week I bought 4 new car takeoffs on Craig's list, and took them to both Sam's and Walmart only to be told that the policy had changed and they would no longer be able to service tires not purchased from them. The service writer at Walmart explained that they had been sued over a tire that they hadn't even sold.

I Goggled and came up with this.

Wal-Mart to Pay $4M in Tire Lawsuit

Wal-Mart’s counsel tried to argue that the company was not responsible for Thorne’s tire failure since it did not sell or install the tires. Thorne argued that since she regularly had her SUV serviced at Wal-Mart, which included tire checks, that the retailer had some responsibility in the case.
Thorne had taken her Expedition to Wal-Mart for service just days before her accident. According to Allen, Wal-Mart’s service included tread and pressure checks and rotating her tires.
The tread check, Allen said, should have revealed a bulge where the tire’s tread was separating.
“It is hoped that this jury award will encourage Wal-Mart to change its policy of not notifying their customers of recalled tires,” Allen said through a media release issued Friday morning. “It is also hoped that Wal-Mart will re-evaluate its policy on tire inspections. Wal-Mart has misled their customers into thinking that they were receiving tire safety service.”
Simley said Wal-Mart is going to examine its tire practices, but he questioned how much responsibility the company had for Thorne’s accident.
“We did not sell the tire,” he said. “We don’t even carry that tire.”

http://www.beasleyallen.com/news/Wal-Mart-to-Pay-$4M-in-Tire-Lawsuit/

Needless to say I'm still looking for a place to get this service done.

[NightWatcher]

1. the lawyer didnt come up with this. Somebody cried and then had to "make somebody pay"

"accidents" dont happen anymore I guess

[Goblinmonger]

6. It's that easy

to get 4 million in a lawsuit against Wal-Mart? Why don't you show us all how?

[THUNDER HANDS]

2. when you win a lawsuit against wal-mart

it means they fucked up. wal-mart hands out money like it's first-born sons.

[Goblinmonger]

4. I remember reading somewhere

that Sam Walton said he would pay money to an injured customer only when the US Supreme Court made him.

[Goblinmonger]

3. I know nothing about the case

but if a law firm was able to hold off the onslaught that came from Wal-Mart lawyers, make it through summary judgment, and convince a jury of 12 ordinary people to award 4 million in damages, then they had a case. Something more is going on; this probably isn't the first instance of Wal-Mart making mistakes of this nature.

Additionally, you need to be careful about this "cases" that you read about on the Internet. Many of them are just made up to make you pissed off at trial lawyers and to call for tort reform (which would be a bad thing for non-corporations) or the facts are significantly distorted (like the McDonalds scaling coffee case).

[ben_meyers]

7. I know nothing about the case either

I was just trying to verify what the service manager had told me. But it does piss me off that one person seems to have ruined it for everyone else.

[lpbk2713]

5. Another valid point in the Wally-World vs Local Merchants argument.

:thumbsdown: :thumbsdown:

[Goblinmonger]

8. Couple things in my own search.

First of all, this is not an instance of someone "crying" about something. She was seriously injured:
"Thorne, who was wearing a seatbelt when the accident occurred, was rendered an incomplete quadriplegic with limited use of her left arm, but no use of her legs or right arm, as a result of the accident."

Secondly, it seems that the problem was that Wal-Mart does not disclose recalls unless they sold the tire to the customer. So if the Wal-Mart employee sees the recalled tire, they don't say anything. THAT'S pretty shitty:
"Plaintiff claimed that Wal-Mart's service personnel were not trained to check the tires on customers' cars for tire problems and that Wal-Mart had a policy of not disclosing recalls on tires unless Wal-Mart sold the tires to the customer in the first place."

Finally, I have no idea why this would impact them balancing a brought-in tire. Are they not going to rotate people's tires unless they were purchased from Wal-Mart? I think that will cut into their business pretty significantly.

[Xithras]

9. You make the assumption that they would even know about it.

Most places only track recalls on products they sell.

Here's a theoretical for you. My company does software development for POS systems, and we occasionally do installs, and sometimes are asked to do maintenance on customers systems that we didn't sell them.

If one of my customers has an IBM POS unit that has a recall for a fire hazard, and my company does a maintenance call for OUR sofware installed on the machine, and one of my techs blows the dust out of the machine (A free service we provide, since many of our customers do zero maintenance on their terminals), and a week later that box ignites, burns the store down, and kills three people, should my company be responsible? Even though I didn't sell them the box and did no hardware work on it other than blowing some dust out (minor maintenance)?

I never thought I'd side with WalMart on anything, but this is a stupid decision. Are companies now obligated to check for recalls on ANY hardware they touch?