Sacramento Bee via Overlawyered:
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the nation’s largest food retailer, said Thursday it will no longer donate nearly-expired or expired food to local groups feeding the hungry.
Instead, that food will be thrown away, a move several Sacramento charities consider wasteful.
Olan James, a Wal-Mart spokesman, said the policy, which applies to all 1,224 Wal-Marts, 1,929 Supercenters and 558 Sam’s Clubs, is an attempt to protect the corporation from liability in case someone who eats the donated food gets sick.
They also donate busted bags of pet food to animal shelters. The bigger you are the easier target you make. Walmart Corp will fight any frivolous law suit to the end. They seldom settle, and will always vigorously pursue criminal prosecution in case of fraud. Many ambulance chasing attorneys seeking quick public relation saving settlements will turn down cases against them.
I guess WalMart will save the food to sell. That way, if they do get sued, at least they made some money on it.
As a side bar to this. Those who run food banks are generally the same that chastise WalMart for being anti-union, paying low wages, and being a bad corporate citizen. This could be payback to the liberal volunteers.
as they say – no good deed goes unpunished.
I don’t really like WalMart, but what they have had to do with theri aged product comes as a result of a “sue happy” society! As a much smaller grocery retailer, we had to make the same choice several years ago . It broke our hearts, but there was no other option. It’s a sad reality that so many people look at business owners as their pathway to money via a law suit.
The only real winners in all of this excessive litigation are the Lawyers, they get huge amounts of money out of these suits.
Don’t blame Walmart, blame the hords of sue happy lawyers and the judges and juries that award ridiculous judgements.
I’m not a fan of Walmart myself, but I think I understand the reason behind their decision!
Paul, I love your comment, but this idea would not fly… agreeing not to sue if someone fed you a harmful substance is not a valid protection under the law, as far as I know!
(At last watching Law and Order religiously pays off)
what about expired cat/dog food? Can the aggrieved owners of those pets sue the company for not adequately locking the dumpsters?
Um. Yea. See, there’s this thing called “google”. It’s freely available to anyone who wants to do some of their own fact checking. Here’s just one relevant post.
Also, there’s Good Sammaritan Law 1996 that exempts food donors from liability in all but the most extreme cases. I read a quote (find it yourself) by one of WalMart’s competitors that conveyed disbelief, since no one else has ever voiced a concern.
So whatever the reasons WalMart decided to let people go hungy, it’s not legal vulnerability.
Zappini, actually the article specifically mentioned that law. But the news site had pulled the story to get people to register to view it. I’m assuming that’s why you didn’t read it. I’ve changed the link to a Google cache of the story so you can check it out.
Walmart says, on one hand, that with the tons of food it donates, a few lawsuits might slip past the good samaritan law. But on the other hand, it also admits it has never really been sued for the food it donated. So, its excuse is BS.
Apparently from the picture, walmart is throwing out more than old. Is the woman in the dumpster a low performing employee?
Worse case scenario should be to at least give the food to animals to eat (ie Zoos). We are a far too wasteful country. Heck, I would be for some of the companies getting a small tax deduction for their expired food donations cause it seems few of them care unless there is a profit motive and this would be at least a justified deduction compared to all the bogus ones these big corporations get..
gqauglia wrote:
“Don’t blame Walmart, blame the hords of sue happy lawyers and the judges and juries that award ridiculous judgements.”
What this is saying more than anything else is the huge disparity between the haves and have nots. A very small percentage of people own the majority of wealth. Lawsuits are a balancing force in a world where the rich hold on to the money that the “little people” make for them.
This problem is not limit to Walmart. Most food stores will not donate nearly-expired or expired food for the same reason: Fear of lawsuits. Individual States and/or Congress should pass laws addressing this so stores and restaurants can donate food to those in need without fear of liability AND protect the individuals receiving these food donations. This should include limits on the amount that can be awarded so lawyer don’t line up to make a killing in fees. It is such a shame that this food must be thrown out because lawyer and judges cannot be trusted.
Just the fact that Walmart used the excuse is evidence enough that there are too many lawyers and not enough people willing to work for their money.
Lawsuits are a balancing force in a world where the rich hold on to the money that the “little people” make for them.
Um, david13, lawsuits are intended to uphold the law. Not bring about economic revenge. It’s a wonderful thing that “little people” can use the law to protect themselves as much as rich people can. The law is on “little people”‘s side much of the time.
But that is a consequence of legislatures passing laws to protect the “little people”. Not judges and lawyers making it up as they go along, or using the courts as a weapon. Rich people may have more money to misuse the legal system, but that doesn’t justify its misuse by “little people”.
In the State of Florida we have been told for over five years that Wal-Mart does not donate expired or near expired foods for the same reasons it is now stating it is happening in California. And we have been told that this is corporate policy. But the good thing is that their competitors whom have always been in our State do donate these same foods under the Good Samaritan Act.
So who is covering up what once again. Remember the rich always take from and abuse our poor.
Wal-Mart is absolutely protected by the federal Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act. They are not being sued over this. More likely, they have decided to sell this stuff on the secondary markets (dollar stores, big lot stores).
I wanted to know what exactly is the California laws about food banks giving out expired food! They( the food banks), go as far as giving away over month old milk, eggs,etc! Now what if children are giving these expired food because they have no choice, are the food banks liable or is the problem just swept under the rug! Thank you.
My name is Josh Ashby and I am currently a assocaite of walmart. Many years I have been with this company and I have something I would like to share with you. I work in recieving, what we call dsd; direct store deliveries. All of the truck that bring the beer, coke, ice cream. The trucks that bring the groceries as well. I check them in. I also tend to the claims, or damaged product. Some of what we send back to the company for credit and others we throw away for credit.
Today I threw away 142 12oz bottles of water. Want to know the reason? Because the plastic was torn and no one would buy it like that.
It disgusts us who work there that we throw away so much product which could be donated instead of trashed. Today is June 21st and tomorrow I play to try to make a change. If you want to find out how email me at
joshashbywalmart00@sbcglobal.net
josh
One thing that we all need to realize is that walmart is a large corporation and makes policies that will be best for the corporation as a whole (in all locations). Just because donations could be viable in CA doesn’t mean they would be in FL. We can even take that further to imply they may have liability in Canada or China. Instead of making a policy for each location, Walmart operates as one entity with the same policies across the board. At least, as much as they possibly can. It’s just good business.
Jim, the 1994 Federal Good Samaritan Act covers every state.
Grocery stores discard an average of $10,000 worth of food…. per store, per MONTH.
WalMart does not want to take the time to mark food as donations, store it until the donation truck arrives and pay employees to help with donations.
THAT’S what Walmart calls ‘good business’…. but what I call a societal wrongdoing.