Corporate Liability
...o’s gas tank was prone to explode on impact. They conducted tests and found that the Pinto was likely to catch fire on impact at speeds as low as 21 mile per hour roughly equal to the speed limit in a school zone. The Ford Motor Company gathered their accountants, engineers, financial accountants and legal minds and did an analysis of how much it would cost to recall and repair every Pinto that was sold. The end decision was they decided that it made more sense to preserve the defect and fight the lawsuits then to make the inexpensive modifications and save lives. 58 people died in Pinto related accidents and many others were seriously burned. The human beings doing the analysis sat in corporate meeting rooms and made dollar and cents calculations that had cost other human beings their lives. There is something wrong here! Juries assessed punitive damages against Ford. Punitive damages are made up to send a message to big companies telling them they can not continue to do business in a way it hurts the customers. Although not in any of the cases could anyone find that Ford had the intent to injure any one person at the time of the injury. They should have been found criminally liable and put the people who were in the meetings put in jail. Another case that sent shock waves through the nation’s business community was the Film Recovery Systems Corporation which was found guilty of murder in connection with Stephan Golab, a Polish immigrant who spoke no English, working at the plant exposed to cyanide fumes at the firm’s silver-reclamation plant. Golab had made complaints before that he was light headed and dizzy. After going back to his station he immediately went to the break room and there he was foaming at the mouth and going into convulsions. When the paramedics arrived Golab’s heart was not beating. The defendants charged were clearly charged based upon omissions to act. They failed to advise Golab the dangers of the job and failed to instruct him in the proper handling of the deadly poison. Employers have a common duty to exercise ordinary care to provide a safe workplace in which the employees may perform day to day tasks. This clearly was not done within the Film Recovery Systems Corporations. Co-workers of Golab told officials they were not to say anything about what had happened. OSHA testified that Golab’s workplace had a yellowish haze hovering over it which led to OSHA investigator’s eyes tearing and a nauseated feeling which is what cyanide does when in contact with it. OSHA also said they did not have any poisonous posters hung up or warning labels warning employees they were working with poison. Three company officials, the president, vice-president and the plant foreman were found that they caused Golab’s death while acting within the scope of their authority as management of the firm. One worker testified that the company needed a new ventilating system but the company didn’t have any money. The prices of silver were rising and the company grossed $13 to $20 million annually. Instead of fixing something to make it a better workplace for employees they decided to expand to put more workstations in. There were already too many workstations. The company is boosting profits but making it more hazardous to work in. There should be a law, before a plant adds more workstations that OSHA should inspect to see if the workstations being put in fit in with safe working conditions. It seems here that if people are not working with something personally that it doesn’t seem to matter to let other people know the dangers of a job. Again selfish, unethical and greed. This brings on another case, U.S. v Park. Park was found guilty on the basis of his awareness of the rat infested food conditions of the company he worked for and his responsibility and authority of his position for the conditions. Park testified he was solely responsible for any result that occurs in the company. Managers and officers sometimes say they can not keep up with the employees. If the employees can not do it then the manager should step in an...