Plaintiffs' Personal Injury Law Firm

Wal-Mart settles Black Friday Lawsuit For $2 M illion

A $2 million dollar settlement was reached today in Minelola, New York between Wal-Mart and the District Attorney in exchange for avoiding criminal charges. On November28th of last year, the day after Thanksgiving, frenzied shoppers trampled and injured 11other shoppers and caused the death of a temporary employee at the Green Acres MallWal-Mart store in Valley Stream, Long Island, New York. Although a safety plan hadpreviously been in place, officials involved in the case felt that the situation could havebeen handled better that day. Although Wal-Mart admitted no guilt in this case, theDistrict Attorney commented that she was sure that Wal-Mart was committed to learningfrom this tragic event and improving their efforts to make New York stores even safer fortheir customers and associates in the future.$400,000 of the funds will be set aside for compensating the victims and Wal-Mart hasalso agreed to implement improved safety measures for crowd management. This willapply to all of New York's 92 stores for future events like after Thanksgiving Day sales.Wal-Mart has also agreed to donate $1.5 million to the community and provide 50 newjobs every year to Nassau County teenagers. The $400,000 will be divided into a$100,000 remuneration fund and a $300,000 compensation fund. The compensation fundwill be administered by Wal-Mart. The fund will be responsible for financiallycompensating those injured as a result of the crowd-related incident. Compensation couldbe provided to individuals with documented injuries including pain and suffering as a resultof the incident.Those wishing to be compensated must file a sworn affidavit attesting to and verifying thatthey were present at Wal-Mart's Valley Stream store during the 2008 post-Thanksgiving Day event between 2:30 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. They must provide information as to thenature and extent of any out-of-pocket losses and injuries suffered as a result of the eventsthat happened at the store on November 28, 2008. Anyone wishing to receivecompensation will be required to waive their right to a separate civil suit against Wal-Mart.