Backing down from an avalanche of bad publicity led by MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Wal-Mart has decided not to pursue its $470,000 judgment against a brain-damaged former employee.
Via Think Progress: CNN now reports that Wal-Mart has written Debbie Shank's family that it will not try to collect over $400,000 that it won in a lawsuit. You all know about the story and Olbermann's nightly crusade to shame Wal-Mart, so I'll just point to the links:
Think Progress entry
CNN story
Update: As has been pointed out in the comments, CNN via Anderson Cooper have also been on the story. Kudos to both. This is what journalism is supposed to do.
Update 2: One commenter pointed out that even Bill O'Reilly was on this story, proving that even a stopped clock is right twice per day. Sorry...couldn't resist. If Billo was on this, props to him too. Maybe he could finally put that master's degree in journalism to work.
But what this story really illustrates is how we need single-payer national health insurance so that businesses can get out of health care and go about... well, their business. I'll have another post on that later in the week.
Thanks to all who rec'd. Sorry for the lack of a tip jar--I saw the Think Progress story when I came home from work and quickly dashed this diary off. Then I went to the store (a local store... not Wal-Mart), and when I came back, this diary had ballooned--I had no idea it would catch on as it has.
Update 3: Olbermann just lauded Wal-Mart's reversal, but rightly questioned what they would do to compensate the Shanks for a year and a half of legal hell. He also had video of Debbie Shank--seeing it shows just how inhuman Wal-Mart is. By the way, Olbermann also mentioned that Debbie Shank's trust fund is down to $270,000. The judgment was for $470,000, so up until this afternoon Wal-Mart was demanding all she had--plus $200,000.
Shank's husband will appear on Countdown tomorrow (Wednesday).