I just skimmed the Wikipedia, but it sounds like an interesting story. Go ahead and make the thread.

Are you in the US? It happened in California a while ago. There are only 3 kids ever in the USA that did this to their father/parents at this age.

Ouch,

While i agree that Walmart was wrong here in not trying to 'reasonably accommodate' this person, I do not agree with these type of punitive damage awards and see them generally as wrong when they do not reflect the damage inflicted.

And i understand the view that these type of punitive damage awards in the US are more tied to ensuring the corporation actually 'feels it', but still i feel that is a wrong premise from which to award judgements.

So while i don't support statutory maximums either, I also would not trust juries to decide the amount.


Walmart loses EEOC disability lawsuit that alleged discrimination against a longtime employee with Down syndrome
PUBLISHED FRI, JUL 16 2021

- Walmart must pay damages in a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency said Friday.

- Marlo Spaeth, a 16-year Walmart employee who has Down syndrome, was fired after the retailer changed her schedule and she struggled to manage the new hours.

- A jury awarded Spaeth more than $125 million in damages -- but Walmart said the maximum amount allowed under federal law is $300,000.

- Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove said the retailer wanted to resolve the matter with Spaeth, but said the EEOC’s demands “were unreasonable.”


A Wisconsin federal court jury ruled that Walmart must pay more than $125 million in damages in a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency announced Friday.

That verdict was quickly reduced Thursday to a statutory maximum of $300,000 by the judge in the case, which involved the termination of Marlo Spaeth, a 16-year employee who has Down syndrome, from the Walmart Supercenter in Manitowoc, Wisconsin...

The jury in the case took less than four hours to reach its verdict Thursday. The verdict was announced shortly after jurors sent out a note asking if they were limited in the amount of damages they could award, and were told no, according to a summary of the proceedings released Friday.

The jury awarded Spaeth $150,000 for emotional pain and mental anguish and another $125 million in punitive damages.

After lawyers told the judge that the legal maximum amount of combined compensatory and punitive damages could not exceed $300,000, he ordered that amount as the judgment...

Texas Senate Votes to Remove Required Lessons on Civil Rights

Imagine still being a conservative in 2021 lmao

I find this 'No Strings Attached" gift curious??

Basically Bezos is saying "I like the things you guys have done in the past so here is a $100MM each to do with as you please."

Jeff Bezos gives $100 million awards to Van Jones and José Andrés: ‘I have a little surprise for you’

Bezos said his Courage and Civility Award is for leaders who ‘aim high.’



Bezos then announced a new philanthropic initiative consisting of a $100 million award that recipients can “direct to the charities of their choice as they see fit.” He added, “No bureaucracy, no committees. They just do what they want. They can give it all to their own charity or they can share the wealth. It’s up to them.”

Bezos said the Courage and Civility Award “recognizes leaders who aim high and who pursue solutions with courage and who always do so with civility.”...

His money so he can do what he wants but not sure if he thinks this will trigger others to 'aim high' in the hopes of a future 'award', or if he cares if this has any legacy or impact beyond the immediate??

I think him telling these two they could direct that money to any initiatives (charities, non-profit, etc) would have had far more impact.

Yet his employees need to pee in bottles

Here's another version of the whale dude--with some other crazy bio stuff included plane crash sharks etc Starts @~9:30

The FTC Votes Unanimously to Enforce Right to Repair

...The move follows an executive order issued last week by the White House urging the agency to secure consumers' rights to fix their own gadgets.
The vote, which was led by new FTC chair and known tech critic Lina Khan, also comes 12 days after President Joe Biden signed a broad executive order aimed at promoting competition in the US economy. The order addressed a wide range of industries, from banks to airlines to tech companies. But a portion of it encouraged the FTC, which operates as an independent agency, to create new rules that would prevent companies from restricting repair options for consumers.

“When you buy an expensive product, whether it's a half-a-million-dollar tractor or a thousand-dollar phone, you are in a very real sense under the power of the manufacturer,” says Tim Wu, special assistant to the president for technology and competition policy within the National Economic Council. “And when they have repair specifications that are unreasonable, there's not a lot you can do."

Wu added that Right to Repair has become a "visceral example" of the enormous imbalance between workers, consumers, small businesses, and larger entities...

large manufacturers block or limit options for independent product repairs, or force consumers to go directly back to a manufacturer, who then charges a premium for a fix. And it’s not just a matter of fixing a broken glass back on a smartphone, or repairing an impossibly small smartwatch: During the height of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020, medical device engineers began speaking out on the dangers of not having access to repair tools for critical devices, such as ventilators, during times of crisis.

As more products are designed with internet connectivity—from smartphones to refrigerators to cars—the issue of repair rights has become increasingly complicated. Repair advocates say consumers should have access to all of the data that their personal devices collect, and that independent repair shops should have access to the same software diagnostic tools that “authorized” shops have...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...rian-schoolboy

Brave Tommy Robinson loses his fight to protect us from immigrant schoolboys who get bullied.

Strange story.

While i know they say there may be some type of self terminate mechanism in people to allow them to die more easily (heart attack) before a horrific death like this, in this case you would think that would not apply. She thought she was tied and jumped meaning she was expecting the free fall so it should not have caused her to have a heart attack unless she was likely to have it even if she was tied properly. Hmmm???

Maybe they shouted out her that she not tied as she was plummeting just to make her aware of her fast approaching death.

Bungee jumper dies after mistakenly thinking it was her turn to jump

A woman in Colombia plummeted to her death after mistaking the signal for her boyfriend to jump as her own...

“She got confused. The signal was for the boyfriend to jump because he was already attached to the security equipment,” ...

Morales was pronounced dead by emergency services first to arrive at the scene, but according to reports, she suffered a fatal heart attack before she hit the ground...

Tragic story :/

Don’t think there is any «self terminate mechanism». A lot of people with underlying heart conditions don’t know about them, pour a bunch of adrenaline on top of that and the end result could be cardiac arrest.

Without knowing all the details, I can’t help but think the operation is to blame here. That you can be in a position to mistakenly jump sounds extremely unprofessional. Safety attached before you are in position sounds like the way to go.

Sound like mushrooms/LSD were involved here and would also explain the self termination before impact.

I dunno how you even diagnose a heart attack in someone who just got smashed jumping with no bungee. Like was everyone totally confused how on earth she could have died and so did a careful autopsy to discover the cause? And then mad props to the autopsy person who was like “nope that heart stopped five seconds before she crashed all over the ground, I’m sure of my timing here”?

It's like an episode of CSI: Bogota SVU

Ya, as a adrenaline junkie who has bungee jumped like that and done most extreme activities there are typically always a series of safety practices that should have prevented that.

In my instance no one was getting anywhere near the edge until they were fully secured simply because accidents happen. You could stumble or trip or even faint and then end up going over.

This just seems like a completely shoddy operation.

Ya I am certainly no expert on the science but as I understand it if for instance, she dies due to the impact then there would be no heart attack at all.

If she hit the ground broken and about to die, and then had a heart attack that ultimately killed her there would be signs of the impact trauma in the heart that they would see.

Thus only if the heart stopped prior to the impact would it not have any of those signs and then they can deduce it stopped prior to the trauma.

I don't get it. bungee jumping, whats the point? Also she wasn't leashed on, so how on earth could this happen? Especially in 3rd world countries this is a no no. Quality of the rubber decreases, due to lack of maintenance, safety regulations, or just skipping on replacements. If you want adrenaline, go cliff diving or parachuting. I don't trust these reports coming from Colombia at all regarding the heart.

Thanks for sharing. I like that mrballen guy and knew his vids but not that one. I wonder now how many people got trapped inside a whale. And I wouldn't believe anyone else probably, but I think this guy is legit.

I'd guess the autopsy would be routine given the circumstances of the death could be in dispute (there'll no doubt be an investigation into why she thought she was secured and whether that's suspicious). There could be relevant factors that get disputed later or weren't perceived correctly by witnesses e.g. did they fall rather than jump, were they intoxicated, on medication, or any underlying condition that might have caused confusion. I'm speculating here but I guess it's possible that the symptoms leading to a heart attack contributed to the jump (and possibly not recognised by anyone involved because of the typical anxiety in such a situation). I can certainly imagine a lawyer arguing in the near future that light-headedness and anxiety led to her misreading the signal.

As for diagnosing a heart attack, that can be done via blood tests or inspection of organs. I don't know about the accuracy of the timing but that can probably be done by the extent of organ damage not explained by the fall, presence of proteins in the blood, fluid build up etc.

As stated, I bungee jumped near the start of the craze when the bungee cord was simply wrapped around a towel around your shins with a flap of Velcro. No body harness. It was a fantastic experience and memory I still cherish almost 3 decades later.

I've skydived, and because I did not want to experience it attached to another person (an expert) and I wanted the feeling of the free fall by myself for my first ever jump, I did what is called a Static Line jump. But because of that I had to do about 6 hours worth of training to learn how to pull my back up chute, in case the primary failed and I had to save my own life.

Cliff diving from any great height requires even more skill and training. Swimming ... entry position.

Bungee Jumping appeals to many as they can jump with no skill and no training. Just show up and jump. The only "experts" need to be the trained staff.

And when i jumped in Canada, they walked us thru a quick 5 minute safety protocol including showing us the Bungee cord they would be using which was coiled in front of us.

The problem is that in many locations (especially Third World) they have under trained staff and poor equipment.






Just look at how frayed the bungee cord is in this Zimbabwe location that is hanging off the edge just behind the girl jumper before she jumps, its snaps and she disappears in to the river and washes down the rapids, to not be seen.


If she had seen that cord first and what terrible shape it was in, I doubt she jumps.

In Canada, cords would only be used a maximum number of times, frayed or not, and never got anywhere near that bad.

That girl who mistakenly jumped unattached should never been allowed any where near the edge. Some people pass out or stumble dizzy due to vertigo at height so you cannot allow them near the edge not secured. So that mistake should never get the chance to happen with proper training.

I knew a guy who did window cleaning for high-rise buildings. He told me about how they had various harnesses and cables that they bought from China and they all had a working life of so many uses or x months, whichever came first. Ironically when they were done they'd then sell them back to Chinese companies who were happy enough with used goods.

So, yeah, I'd never do this in a place that has lower safety standards than home.

Who will build the roads.

Nice, yeah I want to say many things to this. But for now, you're right this is exactly why not in 3rd world countries. The woman survived btw. But she is an idiot for having done this.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationa...49c1a7a9a/amp/

............


China just sent a billionaire to prison for 18 years for political dissent

in the U.S. a billionaire would just about have to be caught on video murdering somebody to end up in jail

not in China - the super rich don't have great power - they're allowed to become wealthy - but the bureaucratic regime directed by Xi rules China - and they better not mess with it - no matter how much money they have





https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/29/busin...hnk/index.html



.

Third world countries will also send rich people to prison, or just confiscate their stuff. I'm not sure it's a great model to follow.