In torts class, we often discuss the limitations placed on the protection of property under the common law. While many states have passed controversial Castle Doctrines or “Make My Day” laws and others have extended such privilege to use lethal force to cars or workplaces (under Make My Day Better laws), the common law does not allow people to use force calculated to cause serious bodily injury or death in defense of property. Many stores instruct employees not to use physical force with shoplifters for that reason or to try to stop armed robberies (including cases where stores have fired such heroes). It appears that a security officer is out of job after a scuffle with an alleged shoplifter caused the middle-aged suspect to have a heart attack and die outside of a Walmart.
Walmart employees and a security guard confronted the man in the store parking lot who reportedly shoplifted two DVD players. When the police arrived in Dekalb County, Georgia, they found the man was unresponsive and bleeding from the nose and mouth.
One of the employees had reportedly placed the man in a choke hold.
Walmart appears to have fired the security officer and put two employees on paid leave. Dianna Gee, a Walmart spokeswoman, said “[n]o amount of merchandise is worth someone’s life. Associates are trained to disengage from situations that would put themselves or others at risk.”
That is the view of the common law. However, the common law allows one to grab someone stealing property and try to retrieve it. If the person then resists, the case can change from defense of property to defense of self. Self-defense and defense of others have far greater ranges in the level of permissible violence. Indeed, you can use lethal force if you reasonably fear for your life. In this case, the employees could argue that they use commensurate levels of force not in the protection of property but in the protection of themselves or others.
With the level of violence or insanity during Black Friday sales, it is surprising that more such incidents do not occur. However, it is usually the customer-on-customer violence that makes the annual event so repulsive for many citizens.
It will be interesting to see if the man’s family sues despite the report that he was found with the stolen items. For Walmart, the cost of such litigation is too costly in comparison to the merchandise. This is why “strike suits” are so successful where companies settle for a few thousand dollars rather than incur litigation costs. Walmart would prefer to avoid such costs even in the face of blatant shoplifting as a cost of doing business.
Source: NBC
Really. Then how does one address another other than using “you”?
Please educate us all on how that works grammatically.
you /juː/, pronoun [second person singular or plural]
1: used to refer to the person or people that the speaker is addressing: used to refer to the person being addressed together with other people regarded in the same class: used in exclamations to address one or more people:
2: used to refer to any person in general:
Let me rephrase that: I see 3 “you”s and don’t believe that any of the are necessary.
Gene, 3 “you”s, none of them necessary.
bettykath,
No one forces you to read anything. If you think nick gets to say whatever he likes about me without consequence though, you’d simply be mistaken. I’ll defend slurs against me how I see fit.
Bron,
Insuring such losses as shoplifting presents a large company with a way to bolster their bottom line on their year end P/E statements by zeroing out the loss in terms of reporting profits. Although it costs them up front like any insurance to be able to write those off as insured, it’s strictly an accounting measure to give them the best income statement possible when dealing with a systemic loss like shoplifting. This is even more important in a publicly traded company like Wal-Mart. It plays to their bottom line which plays to their stock price which in turn plays to company valuation and dividends (if any).
In a small non-traded company it’s less important unless the risk you are insuring against is something that could ruin the company by depleting profits or delving into surplus for a given year. For example, a small company must weight the cost of insurance against the likelihood of incurring a risk associated cost when deciding what to insure. If stock loss is an issue that could severely impact profits or surplus? You may want to insure your inventory, which is what Wal-Mart does by self-insuring for losses like shoplifting. And the choice to self-insure is probably one of simple economics; they can afford to build a risk pool of sufficient size to cover any associated costs so it makes sense to avoid paying a premium to a commercial insurer which has administrative costs and profits built in to the premium costs. They probably do the same for warehouse inventory, but they may use a combination of self-insurance and commercial insurance depending upon how much they warehouse. They may not be able to self-insure to the point to cover those losses, but in Wal-Mart’s place, they probably can.
If you’re not in a retail or stock oriented business? Say you’re a company that doesn’t produce a tangible product but rather provides a service and has a limited or rapidly fungible inventory? Say like a cleaning service. You may want to insure your machinery instead and just assume the risk of loss of your minimal inventory from profits and surplus. However, as a small business, the assumption of risk carries not so much a hazard to valuation for trading as it does for posing a danger to cash flow for operations. Wal-Mart isn’t worried about cash flow on day to day operations as a general rule. Bob’s Office Cleaning Service is worried about it. A fire destroying his wet-dry vacs could put him out of business if he doesn’t have the profits or surplus to replace them and keep his cash flow going. Same goes for a smaller inventory oriented business. Sam’s Custom Radiators may be able to absorb losing a couple of radiators, but if he lost enough of his stock to not be able to fulfill his outstanding orders? He’s toast if the replacement costs outpace profits and/or exhaust any surplus.
The function of insurance at its basest serves the same function in both small and large businesses (indemnification), but there is the value add of improving your financials for a given period if you are traded. With proper risk management, a large company can suffer a loss that would kill a smaller company while maintaining their value (which is very important to the board and the investors) and they can improve their financials though mitigation like insurance to indemnify for a loss they would in actuality be able to absorb if forced to simply because of their size.
I’m a bit tired of scrolling past the duelers, but I’ll point out one thing that I’ve noticed. nick tends to use “I” statements. Gene tends to use “you” statements. “I” statements tend toward to nonviolent communications while “you” statements tend toward violent communications.
Apparently you missed the point where I’m not obligated to do what you say and the numerous times I’ve stated when you give insult, you’ll get it back. And once again, you know absolutely nothing about me so your opinion on my success in life is irrelevant yet you feel free to keep bringing it up whenever you can’t win an argument based on facts, logic and evidence. One has to ask why is that?
Now prove what I said was wrong if you can. Obviously you can’t. Hence your resorting to attacking me personally. If you could, you would have.
You’re intimidated by anyone smarter than you and you lash out like a child when someone takes your statements to task on a factual basis so you resort to the only tactic your small mind can come up with: ad hominem. Even if I was the failure you’d like to believe I am (and I’m not)? It wouldn’t impact the validity and veracity of my arguments one bit. That’s why ad hominem has only very limited valid application in argumentation: unless the veracity of the claimant is the sole representation as to the veracity of a claim, i.e. there is no other evidence to the truthfulness of an assertion other than the claimants word, the character of the claimant is irrelevant. The arguments are the arguments.
So if you don’t like being corrected? Stop being wrong. If you don’t like losing an argument? Don’t start ones you cannot win or learn to argue better.
When one logically examines your tactics, the only thing you actually prove time and again is that you can’t argue for shit, you aren’t very smart and you think being nasty can bluster you through that around these parts. Too bad for you it can’t. But it sure says a lot about you though. However, you’re the one who started the pissing match right here..
If what I said before was too complicated for you to understand, I’ll say it again: You get from me what you give. I’m a mirror. I’m that way on purpose. Ask your buddy Bron if you doubt this. He, unlike you, was able to learn the futility of your limited tactical repertoire. You can’t hurt my feelings. You can’t harm me in any way with your insults – founded or unfounded. You can, however, get some back for your efforts, dullard. Or am I being too rough on the tough guy?
If that presents a problem for you, it’s entirely your problem.
Now . . .
If you can prove what I said was wrong as a factual matter in re insurance, you feel free to try.
Otherwise? I argue for sport, sport.
You’re just a source of amusement for me.
Gene H:
“You two really don’t understand how risk management, insurance, accounting and income taxes actually work on a large scale.”
I dont know about Nick, but I am just a small businessman so I have no idea how Wal Mart or any large corporation does those things. I imagine they are similar to how I do it because of the principles involved but I would expect there to be differences. A debit is a debit and a credit is a credit whether or not it is Wal Mart or Big Adolfs Bargain Mart.
A beam can be 100′ long and 10′ deep or 10′ long and 10″ deep, the calculations are the same with a couple of added steps for the deeper beam.
So why dont you tell me how it is done by the big companies? I would be interested in learning.
Plus, I’ve said many times..I’m a bourbon man. But I don’t overindulge. Everything in moderation.
Gene, I had a successful career and retired a few years after my wife. I have a fulfilling life w/ a loving wife, children, friends and a wealth of experiences. I volunteer, helping my community as I have since I was a Vista volunteer coming out of college. I am retired comfortably and spend winters in San Diego. I’m not wealthy..I’m comfortable. You’re an unsuccessful, underachieving, angry man w/ this being your only life. When you go off on minor sidebar issues like this more and more people see it. Too bad you don’t.
If anyone reads my comments, I implored you to not let this minor point sidetrack this thread. I know you, and tried to prevent your freight train from derailing. I gave you a “win” in an attempt to stop your pathological rant @ always being right. Seek out a good shrink.
How about we watch the not very bright unemployed vodka soused detective who mooches off his wife try to get a rise out of someone who thinks his every efforts to do so are really funny instead? What’s the matter, sweetums? No cogent counterargument to offer yet again so you choose to lie about someone you don’t know anything about?
What’s really sad is watching you try to score points in an argument by lamenting a business practice you don’t even understand that’s irrelevant to the main point of the article: namely that someone died for alleged shoplifting, shoplifting that would not have impacted the store’s bottom line or the bottom line of the greater corporation had they simply been let go.
“Walmart appears to have fired the security officer and put two employees on paid leave. Dianna Gee, a Walmart spokeswoman, said ‘[n]o amount of merchandise is worth someone’s life. Associates are trained to disengage from situations that would put themselves or others at risk.”
Why do you suppose that is? It couldn’t be potential litigation costs and the fact that they are indemnified from shoplifting loses due to proper risk management shaped that policy, now could it? It couldn’t possibly be that others know what they are doing when the nick hasn’t approved of it!
Oh noes.
Bron, I would love to play 3 card monty and the shell game w/ these rubes who believe “insurance will pay,” etc. Unfortunately, the biggest omnipotent, macro rube has no cash, just bravado since he lost his job @ Radio Shack. I don’t know if it’s more pathological or sad? I think the former. Let’s watch him rant..it’s vodka hour. It should be good.
” security officer is out of job after a scuffle with an alleged shoplifter caused the middle-aged suspect to have a heart attack and die outside of a Walmart.”
The shoplifting is alleged but the heart attack was definitely caused by the guard?
Because one thing followed another, we do not know the time frame or sequence of events between the scuffle and the heart attack, how long did it take for the police to arrive(?), or why he was blooding from the nose and mouth, does not mean one was the cause of the other.
Too quick to rush to judgement: the officer is guilty but the suspect only alleged.
You two really don’t understand how risk management, insurance, accounting and income taxes actually work on a large scale.
It’s kind of cute.
There are not enough facts here for me to make a judgement.
What Gene said about the choke hold. Unless there was a need for deadly force no chokehold is reasonable. I don’t know if that was the case here.
If the defendant died as a result of his resisting a lawful arrest, that is only if the force was reasonable, ( I don’t know if it was in this case) I would agree with the another commenter it was an assumption of risk on behalf of the shoplifter for stealing the item and fighting with the store employees.
nick:
isnt self insurance where I charge my customers a little more for each item which I then deposit the little extra in my self insured account. After several million transactions and a good financial adviser, my account is worth several hundred million dollars and I am self insured against most loss.
Isnt that how it works?
Bron, Amen! The way people think that, “insurance will pay it, “Tax corporations,” “We’re getting Fed tax dollars for our state” makes me wonder if people understand how the world works.
The victim was found with the DVDS. Well of course he was! Do you really think these over reacting Clint Eastwoods wouldn’t make sure that happened. I think there is a lot more to this story and I hope the man’s family sues. I don’t believe a word of what Walmart says. Not for a minute.
nick,
I agreed that you don’t know what you’re talking about vis a vis indemnification and loss.
There was no loss to Wal-Mart here on the DVD players even if the alleged perp got away with them. That they are self-insured is irrelevant to the fact that they are insured. Your display of not understanding how risk pools operate was truly impressive though.
nick spinwelli:
yep and we pay their taxes too. which seems to be lost on most people.
If I have said it once, I have said it a thousand times, “individuals pay taxes, not corporations.”