Tracy Morgan Sues Wal-Mart Over Deadly Crash

[MovieBob]

Tracy Morgan Sues Wal-Mart Over Deadly Crash

Comedian will sue retail giant over truck-crash that serious injured him and killed his mentor

On June 7th, a limo-bus containing comedian Tracy Morgan, his mentor James McNair and several others was involved in a devastating car wreck that put Morgan in critical condition and resulted in McNair's death. It was subsequently confirmed that the multi-car crash had been caused by a Wal-Mart tractor-trailer truck whose driver (who since turned himself into authorities) had fallen asleep at the wheel after allegedly having been awake for over 24 hours.

Now, Morgan (who was originally hospitalized in critical condition is still undergoing serious rehabilitation at an unknown facility), McNair's family and several other victims have officially filed suit against the Wal-Mart Corporation seeking "unspecified damages" and a trial by jury. The suit claims that Wal-Mart "knew or should have known" that its driver was operating on an unsafe lack of sleep, and that its vehicle's collision-avoidance systems had been compromised.

The suit describes Morgan as having been "...incapacitated from pursuing his usual employment and other activities, may be left with disabilities that will in the future similarly incapacitate him and cause him pain and suffering, and may require medical treatment."


Source: Deadline [http://www.deadline.com/2014/07/report-30-rock-star-tracy-morgan-critical-after-multi-car-crash-2/]

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[grey_space]

Fair play to him all the same though.

The case seem righteous enough.


Hopefully the case will be high profile enough that it will shine enough light on their practices that it might change something.

 

[RealRT]

I hope he wins this one. I'm all for blaming Wal-Mart.

 

[softclocks]

According to BigTuk the entire concept of neglect is pointless.

"it's all a blame game!"

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Well, to me, this actually seems like one of those increasingly rare cases where a lawsuit is actually justified. If Wal-Mart pushes their employees to work on unsafe time scales, then something has to be done about it, and money is often a sure way of making a change. Hopefully this all gets resolved for the better.

 

[Veldel]

I hope he wins just to hurt walmart after working there I can say they are one of the worst employers there is.

 

[Saltyk]

From what I've read, I think the blame mostly belongs on the driver. It sounds like he had been up for a long time before even going into work, which is a case of him acting irresponsibly. He wasn't even maxed out on his daily hours, though he was close. So, personally, I think the majority of the blame is on the driver, and he should face prosecution.

That being said, Wal-Mart does have a responsibility to ensure that they employees can actually do their jobs. They do hold some culpability in this case. Someone should have sent him home if he had already been awake for the better part of a day before coming in to work.

Most likely Wal-Mart will settle this and other cases out of court, if they are able to.

I wish Tracy and all the others who were injured in this incident a full recovery and happy lives. May those who lost their lives rest in peace.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I think he should, as part of the lawsuit, try to overhaul the forced working conditions. Make them give the employees a fair deal.

 

[Fappy]

If they can prove Walmart was aware of the driver's lack of sleep (which they should be able to do with a simple subpoena), then more power to them. IIRC a truck drive in the US is not legally allowed to drive more than 15 hours every 24 hours.

 

[PirateRose]

It's an issue of both pay, hours, and lack of employees.

When I had first starting working for Walmart nearly a decade ago, they had enough employees in each department to cover when some was sick. Now if someone is sick, a department can go empty all day because the second employee for that department were too busy trying to take care of the 3 other departments they are expected to work in that day, plus be called up front to work the register whenever the lines get too long because cashiers are short handed. Literally, there are days when they only have once maintenance worker covering that 190k square foot building, and you'll hear them call for maintenance to multiple locations in the store at once. Then the maintenance worker gets written up for not getting to all the areas immediately when they were called.

They've started posting messages on the walls by the clock in station, with messages from some random big wig at corporate, telling us the importance of making sure the shelves remain fully stocked. It's as if they are intentionally ignoring that there are not enough employees to keep things stocked. These human beings can't split into two to get the job done.

I can imagine this is happening among truck drivers, there isn't enough drivers and trucks to get the goods delivered within the time period WalMart needs. My store got so backed up on on goods in our back room, we had to do a purge and send the stuff to other stores for them to sell. We just couldn't get them out on the floor and sell them as fast as they came in. Add to it, I think truck drivers are not getting paid enough and instead of demanding more pay they are actually demanding 80 hour work weeks, dressed up as needing more time to get their trucks to their destinations on time.

It's like nothing is more important than getting a truck load of material objects to a destination on time. Not even a human beings life.

WalMart is openly ignoring the danger they are presenting by pressuring all their employees to work outside what they are humanly able to do.

 

[Lilani]

If they can prove Walmart was aware of the driver's lack of sleep (which they should be able to do with a simple subpoena), then more power to them. IIRC a truck drive in the US is not legally allowed to drive more than 15 hours every 24 hours.

I don't think they even have to prove THAT, tbh. If they can prove WalMart has a system in place for its drivers which either forces them to or makes them feel obligated to drive longer and farther than regulations allow, then they also have a case. Or even just a system that lacks safeguards or checks to make sure drivers don't push themselves too far.

 

[Something Amyss]

Do they care enough to go after Walmart? again, no.

Eh. Maybe if it was a bigger celebrity. No offense to Morgan or his late mentor, but I think you'd need to be bigger than a 30 Rock/SNL Alumni to hurt Wal-Mart.

Though even if they do get hit, Wal-Mart won't feel it. They'll punish their employees and raise prices on consumers.

I think he should, as part of the lawsuit, try to overhaul the forced working conditions. Make them give the employees a fair deal.

If the multiple suits and investigations brought against them specifically related to that didn't do anything, I doubt this one will.

If they can prove Walmart was aware of the driver's lack of sleep (which they should be able to do with a simple subpoena), then more power to them. IIRC a truck drive in the US is not legally allowed to drive more than 15 hours every 24 hours.

I have little doubt they could.

I don't think they even have to prove THAT, tbh. If they can prove WalMart has a system in place for its drivers which either forces them to or makes them feel obligated to drive longer and farther than regulations allow, then they also have a case. Or even just a system that lacks safeguards or checks to make sure drivers don't push themselves too far.

Basically, the accusations that came from drivers was that if they didn't do extra time on the road, they'd find their hours cut way the hell back. So while they technically weren't forced, they couldn't afford not to.

This is also what they did in the stores around my area when I was working for them. The major difference being that we weren't operating multi-ton machines that could kill if we dozed off, and since Wal-Mart is against overtime for hourly employees, extra hours usually only brought people up to 40. Which could still be problematic if you, like many of the people there, worked a second job, but it still wasn't as harsh as with drivers.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Arnt there laws for truck drivers in America? In the Uk they are only allowed to drive for a certain amount of time per day as well as break times after certain amount of hours driving. They have these things in their trucks that record all these times etc (As you can tell, i dont know the specifics. lol) If the USA does have these laws then the driver could reported the company and sued them for breaking health and safety laws plus any other truck driving laws.

 

[youji itami]

Arnt there laws for truck drivers in America? In the Uk they are only allowed to drive for a certain amount of time per day as well as break times after certain amount of hours driving. They have these things in their trucks that record all these times etc (As you can tell, i dont know the specifics. lol) If the USA does have these laws then the driver could reported the company and sued them for breaking health and safety laws plus any other truck driving laws.

In merica! they call that communism.

 

[Saltyk]

Arnt there laws for truck drivers in America? In the Uk they are only allowed to drive for a certain amount of time per day as well as break times after certain amount of hours driving. They have these things in their trucks that record all these times etc (As you can tell, i dont know the specifics. lol) If the USA does have these laws then the driver could reported the company and sued them for breaking health and safety laws plus any other truck driving laws.

There are such laws. The most they can drive is 11 hours and they must take a 30 minute lunch break during an 8 hour shift. And they must rest for 10 hours. If they work 70 hours in 8 days, they must rest for 34 consecutive hours before working again. The DoT regulates this and can fine companies for breaking such laws. Trucks are also equipped with meters to record how long a driver is driving, so it's pretty much impossible to lie about it.

From what I've read, the driver in question was not quite at his maximum number of hours yet. I think he had only been on the road about nine and a half hours. However, he also apparently didn't sleep for around 14 hours before even going into work, and had been up for over 24 hours. The driver was also driving 20 MPH over the speed limit (roughly 32 KPH) at the time of the crash.

Most likely the driver was falling asleep at the wheel, but this was largely due to him acting irresponsible. Not that Wal-Mart doesn't have some responsibility for the incident.

The thing that gets me is that I have been in the cab of several Big Rigs and every one that I have ever seen has a small area for sleeping behind the driver and passenger seats. So, it's not like he couldn't pull over in a rest area and catch a nap, if he needed.

 

[omega 616]

Sorry, I'm not calling anybody al a liar but 24 hours without sleep doesn't impair you that badly. 3 or 4 days fucks you up but 2?

I know it's akin to drinking alchol 'cos youre reactions are so slowed but how fast is this trolley tractor going? Not saying the article is wrong but I think it's more to do with the tractor than the lack of sleep.

 

[xaszatm]

Sorry, I'm not calling anybody al a liar but 24 hours without sleep doesn't impair you that badly. 3 or 4 days fucks you up but 2?

I know it's akin to drinking alchol 'cos youre reactions are so slowed but how fast is this trolley tractor going? Not saying the article is wrong but I think it's more to do with the tractor than the lack of sleep.

The vehicle was going 20 miles over the speed limit. So even if he wasn't sleep deprived, he probably would've crashed anyway (though being awake would have at least given more options). Also, while you can work for days on end, after around 20 hours, you body WILL start to make you sleep. One of the ways it can do that is "flash sleeping." In such a state you fall into a deep sleep for about 10 seconds then wake up without ever realizing you fell asleep. Now, doing this in an office or a similar location will not hurt anyone. Doing this while driving, on the other hand is practically suicide. You aren't supposed to drive, operate dangerous machinery, or do any time-important activities if you haven't slept properly.