does Wal-Mart really need it?

I am sure by now all of us have heard the Deborah Shank story. For those who have not followed the news lately, here is the story in a nut shell. Deborah Shank a former Wal Mart employee suffered devastating injuries in a traffic accident about 7 years ago. At that time Wal-Mart paid $470,000 of Shank's initial medical bills. And of course looked like the good American company.

About 4 years ago Shank's husband sued the Truck company that had hit Shank's minivan and left her in a nursing home with total loss of short term memory. The court ruled in favor of the Shank family. The total settlement of $417,477 was placed in a special-needs trust fund for Shank's future health care expenses. With virtually being not able to remember anything due to wipe out of short term memory, she can not be left without the attention of someone. Thus she needs to be at a nursing home. Deborah Shank lost her son in Iraq and is traumatised by the news every time she hears it as she has not short term memory.

After Wal-Mart found out that Shank's had settled with the truck company, they came right back and sued the shanks to repay the initial expenses paid by Wal-Mart. Yes, even I thought why a company as big as Wal-Mart that had reported 90 Billion dollars in revenue in the last quarter of 2007 would ask a virtually disabled former employee to pay back. The answer is because it is legally possible to do so. While signing with Wal-Mart as an employee, the Shank's did not read the fine print. It read that if for some reason an employee get the money from a settlement, Wal-Mart reserves the right to collect the initial expenses covered by the company.

So now the giant is asking the Shank's for $400,000 by filing a law-suit. Shank's husband has no idea what he can do and he is already working two jobs to keep up with his wives medical bills. The question is does Wal-Mart really need that $400,000? They have the Wal-Mart employee trust and the Walton Family trust that could take care of this as a charity. It is legal but is it moral to collect the $400,000 from the Shank's?

With only about $250,000 left in the Shank's bank account, lawyers from Wal-Mart have already won the law-suit and have sent a notice to the Shank's to send that remaining money to add to the first quarter revenues of $50 billion.

If you feel you want to do something to help the Shank's, you can sign a petition on Facebook to stop Wal-Mart from collecting the money from them. Almost a million Americans have swore not to shop at Wal-Mart again, you could join them as well.