Question

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 Wal-Mart store in Long Island, New York, 2,000 shoppers lined up hours before the scheduled 6:00 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 afterward, at 5:00 a.m., the crowd broke through the glass doors of the store in a stampede. Jdimytai Damour, a Wal-Mart maintenance worker, was trampled by the crowd and died from asphyxiation. In addition, a customer in the store named Fred Smith and his 4 kids were seriously injured.

Two lawsuits are filed against Walmart – one by the family of the employee injured, and the other by Fred Smith and his family. Both are suing Walmart for negligence. Act as their lawyers and argue how each of their cases satisfy the elements of negligence, and why. After this, act as the lawyer for Walmart and argue why the elements of negligence were not satisfied, and why.

Answer 1

Answer:

As lawyer for employee and Fred Smith

Walmart has advertised for “Blitz sale” where it was supposed to sale limited number of sharply discounted televisions, computers, and video game sets. The “limited” word created a sense of competition among the customers and they embarked the store before starting of the sale to queue up for ensuring that they secure the item at the discounted rate. However because of the competition, the event was converted into stampede. This resulted into the death of an employee and caused serious injury to the family of Fred.

The stampede was caused as a result of negligence by Walmart store. Before actually arranging the sale, it was the responsibility of Walmart to ensure the appropriate security measures so as to mitigate the risk of happening of any unforeseen event. However, Walmart did not arrange for the security measure. Moreover, when the things were getting out of control, Walmart did not take any action to bring the situation under control. As a result of this negligent behaviour of Walmart, stampede occurred that caused the loss of life of an employee and seriously injured the family including 4 kids of Fred Smith.

As lawyer for Walmart

The element of negligence was not satisfied as walmart has called police to control the situation when the crowd became unruly. Now, it was the responsibility of the police department to maintain law and regulations of the queue. However, the police department, after attending the crowd for certain period of time, left the facility exclaiming that the situation is under control. After the police left, stampede occurred. Hence, the negligence was on the part of the police department and not on the part of Walmart.