I'm not sure Grove, and now you have me curious, I'm going to email my old mentor who I worked with in retail and is the in-house council. I know workman's comp. covers covers certain things, I'm just not sure if this situation falls into it to prevent civil action. I'll let you know the response.

grovester wrote:
Quote:

If something ever happened and we failed to make changes to ensure employee safety we could be held liable in a civil court.

I'm not sure if a lawyer told you that, and I'm not sure what the laws are in San Jose, but no, that's probably not correct. Foreseeability is irrelevant. If an employee is an injured, while performing their work duties AND the injury arose out of them performing their work duties, their injuries are covered by worker's comp, there's no need for a lawsuit.

(The risk that the company was taking wasn't a lawsuit, but was the risk that their worker's comp insurance rates would go up because the employees are in a more dangerous situation. Just like your car insurance rates go up when you move to Jersey City from the suburbs.)

Aside from insurance rates, it does not matter what steps were taken by the employer to make the job safer because worker's compensation law creates a duty in the employer to cover employees for on-the-job injuries regardless of who is at fault.

I'm not sure, but it might be that you're just disagreeing with me over the use/definition of "negligence." The legal definition includes foreseeable risk, it doesn't mean accidental, which might be a layman definition.

An example might be something like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fires in NYC. That was the same kind of negligence or worse - blocking of doors and fire exits to keep the workers working. (This is "negligence" even though what the employers did wasn't accidental - they certainly could have foreseen that locking fire exits would be a fire hazard.) Today, the injuries and even the deaths that ensued would be covered by worker's comp and employees would not have the choice of suing the Factory.

So, that's the tradeoff of workers comp. Injured workers don't have to "take the chance" of going through a lawsuit where they might win, they might lose, they might never find a lawyer to take their case, they might not be awarded enough money to cover their injuries. Instead they are guaranteed to have their injuries covered by worker's comp.

Why would employers agree to this? Because the other side of the tradeoff is that they're protected from lawsuits by agreeing to provide workers comp to injured workers.

If something ever happened and we failed to make changes to ensure employee safety we could be held liable in a civil court.

grovester wrote:
Quote:

Worker's comp laws are supposed to protect employers from worker injury suits, but if an employer clearly was negligent and kept sending employees out just to be robbed, then maybe a lawyer could file a separate negligence suit.

You're right that Worker's comp laws protect employers from suits, but "negligence" doesn't change that - if you think about it, workers comp injuries are almost always a result of negligence.

The only remaining suit, I believe, would stem from an intentional tort (i.e. your employer paid some guy to mug in you in the parking lot). Which I don't think is what happened here.

So there's probably no law suit to be had here, against Game Stop at least. (Suing the mall might be a possibility though...)

Worker's comp laws are supposed to protect employers from worker injury suits, but if an employer clearly was negligent and kept sending employees out just to be robbed, then maybe a lawyer could file a separate negligence suit.

alb wrote:
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r_pinkowitz wrote:

http://www.state.nj.us/victims/

http://www.state.nj.us/victims/pages/benefits_in_a_nutshell.htm

Thanks.

One thing to note is that the limit seems to be $25,000 for regular treatments and $35,000 for rehab.

In the Gamestop case, those limits would obviously be more than high enough.

But, if I'm understanding the limits correctly, they are super low, especially for an uninsured person who has to pay the full retail price for care.

For someone who's seriously injured, any limit under $200,000 is really a joke.

r_pinkowitz wrote:

http://www.state.nj.us/victims/

http://www.state.nj.us/victims/pages/benefits_in_a_nutshell.htm

SpyderVash wrote:

That's the thing though, I've never seen an employee sue them over something like this & that's why they continue to do it.

r_pinkowitz wrote:
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fat-ass-bike wrote:
- Cheap and typical of small business and how they value their staff. Why pay for insurance and also money collections

Gamestop is a publicly traded corporation, that owns over 5000 stores, has over 33,000 employees with annual sales of over 5.5 billion dollars, this is not a "small business".

Insurance companies writing polices for retail stores have clear guidelines for public and employee safety as well as loss due to theft.
They will not cover losses or lawsuits if the written policy is not followed, when it comes to insurance coverage of missing, lost and stolen deposits. There is very clear and strict guidelines.

Looking at this event from with a "loss prevention" perspective, there is something clearly wrong here.

If the store management/staff did not violate company policy by doing a unsecured night drop, and the staff were following all the coperate policies and procedures, the risk for a law suit from the employees because of employer negligence would be substantial for such a large company.

alb wrote:
Quote:

fat-ass-bike wrote:
Thats exactly the point - It costs money to get armed guards to collect the money and deposit it for you (sometimes the cost is based on the amount they collect and deposit for you).
If you get an employee to deposit the money it costs you nothing.

Insurance will cover the money lost and the employee will be covered (medical costs) by being a victim of crime

Is it true that crime victims can get free medical care in Jersey City? If so, how does that work?

fat-ass-bike wrote:
Thats exactly the point - It costs money to get armed guards to collect the money and deposit it for you (sometimes the cost is based on the amount they collect and deposit for you).
If you get an employee to deposit the money it costs you nothing.

Insurance will cover the money lost and the employee will be covered (medical costs) by being a victim of crime

fat-ass-bike wrote:
- Cheap and typical of small business and how they value their staff. Why pay for insurance and also money collections

r_pinkowitz wrote:
Quote:

SpyderVash wrote:
Just one more reason I hate that company. In that store they started making us take the deposits to the bank at night, when it used to be perfectly fine to take them during the day, while there is security around and there's light outside.

I'm surprised that they gave the manager off today, but it didn't surprise me when I found out that they still expect him to be back at work by tomorrow.

Next I'm sure they'll blame him saying that he should've taken a different route to the bank or walked faster.

I'm not sure what type of volume that store does and how many days worth of deposits this entailed, but asking any employee to do a night drop when the bank is not located in the mall is insane. The cost of deposit pickups is pennies when you look at the big picture and the safety of the staff.

SpyderVash wrote:
Just one more reason I hate that company. In that store they started making us take the deposits to the bank at night, when it used to be perfectly fine to take them during the day, while there is security around and there's light outside.

I'm surprised that they gave the manager off today, but it didn't surprise me when I found out that they still expect him to be back at work by tomorrow.

Next I'm sure they'll blame him saying that he should've taken a different route to the bank or walked faster.