CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY….Ford decided yesterday to settle a lawsuit related to a van rollover after a judge warned that their behavior “borders on criminal.” Goodness. All they did was deny that their van had ever rolled over in tests, when in fact it turned out that one of their test drivers had done just that. Or had he?
On Thursday, [Ford spokeswoman Kathleen] Vokes said “the confusion” involved whether the term ‘rollover’ covers a van merely tipping on its side.
This, of course, came after the judge had already promised to sanction Ford for its prior attempts to hide data on the stability of its vans.
And in related news of corporate responsiblity, Disney has lost an appeal in a long running case involving the rights to market Winnie the Pooh merchandise. After it was revealed that they had destroyed dozens of boxes of evidence, they claimed it didn’t really matter because the documents were all irrelevant: “They were tossed during a housecleaning after the executive’s death, the company said.”
For some reason the appellate court didn’t agree.
It’s certainly good to see corporate America showing such respect for our legal system, don’t you think? Why, if only those rapacious trial lawyers could be brought to heel, life would be such smooth sailing for them ? and luckily, George Bush and the Republican party seem to agree. I’ll bet that Michael Eisner is a big fan of tort reform right about now.
