Evil Home Depot! I shop at Lowes mainly now. I find their prices and service much better. Their employees treat me better there also.
Posted on 06/17/2010 1:54:37 AM PDT by rawhide
"The Lord had given me this idea. He helped me come up with this,"..."When it was stolen from me, he told me to pursue Home Depot."
In what U.S. District Judge Daniel Hurley said illustrated Home Depot's arrogance and greed, it took pictures of executives standing over the device Powell invented. Armed with pencils and tablets, they took measurements so they could duplicate it.
"How much clearer could it be?" Hurley said last month, upholding a jury's $15 million verdict and tacking on nearly $9 million in punitive damages and attorney fees. "It is sad to say, but Home Depot literally organized the theft of the Powell invention. Big, wealthy Home Depot just blew off Michael Powell."
...he had a contract with Home Depot for years to fix machines in its stores, first in Florida and then across the country. So, he wanted to help when he learned radial saws used to cut wood for customers also had a nasty habit of taking off employees' fingers - and worse.
Top executives knew the service gave the chain a competitive edge. But the mounting lost fingers were driving up worker's compensation costs. If the problem wasn't fixed, the saws would be yanked.
Powell had come up with a way to solve it. A saw guard, he dubbed Safe Hands, would keep workers fingers from getting under the blade.
Impressed, Home Depot asked him to build prototypes for eight stores in Georgia and California. While the saw guard and dust collectors worked, the two sides couldn't agree on price. Home Depot offered to pay $1,200 a unit - less than it cost Powell to produce them. Then, they just went away.
Later, Powell discovered his units were being installed in 2,000 Home Depot stores nationwide. In 2007, he filed suit.
(Excerpt) Read more at palmbeachpost.com ...
Evil Home Depot! I shop at Lowes mainly now. I find their prices and service much better. Their employees treat me better there also.
LOL. My Nephew and his wife are both store managers for Home Depot. Just wait till I get up there for vacation in July!
As a former employee of the orange cult I say good for him!
Wow, the Home Despot are a bunch of evil bastards.
LOVE IT.
The management of that era engendered the mantra of their leader—Bob Nardelli—who is no longer with them. Frank Blake is now the CEO—and while he is a lawyer, I don’t see him doing this.....
Prices? About the same-but service?? Ten times better at Home Depots locally....
First fronting for illegal aliens, and now stealing from citizens; to pay for their luxuries.
Makes me laugh that people often say “you couldn’t get 10 people to keep their mouths shut about a conspiracy”
They did here
No wonder Home Depot balked.
Since Michael Powell says the Lord gave him the idea, and told him to pursue Home Depot in court, I'm sure Powell will return the bulk of the $15 million settlement to the Lord in some way.
How much is your cut off finger worth to you?
Good. This is one of the few times where it sounds like the good guy won for once.
Yes, he said he was going to give some of it to Peter Popoff and Jimmy Swaggart.
Enough to pay attention and keep it out from under a blade, whether there is a guard there or not.
And how much would it save HD in WC claims?
Lost fingers and disability payments are not cheap.
How much is the customer service worth too?
Pylon, me too and major dittoes!
Well 1200.00 per 2000 stores would have been 2,400,000 and
he would have supplied the units if I’m reading this right.
What has HD spent to defend themselves in this lawsuit which they lost at a much greater cost?
At the time Bob was their CEO, I had Home Depot stock and I remembered getting the proxy vote. If I remember right, there was a special bonus plan to vote on for the executives especially Bob. Of course the board recommended a vote FOR. I voted against it. Those who went to the shareholders meetings saw what transpired. Many shareholders were asking questions on the executive bonus plan and Bob had the audacity to ignore them and walk out.
For many companies, the executives are not living up to their great responsibility in terms of long term growth for the company and the well being of the employees and shareholders. It is all about them and everyone else be damned !
> The management of that era engendered the mantra of their leader—Bob Nardelli—who is no longer with them.
As a former employee of the orange cult I say good for him!
__________________________
My husband worked for them for a while after retiring from the Air Force. During orientation they BRAGGED about things like this!
One example I remember is a hot water heater company that was asked to provide their hot water heater with a different name attached because customers for some reason thought a certain company made them that did not and would often ask for X brand. So they asked a firm manufacturing them to put a different name on them (the one customers THOUGHT made hot water heaters - X brand). When the manufacturer refused, HD deliberately put them out of business by taking ALL their business to another firm that WOULD put X brand on their water heaters! This was a source of pride for them ~ they discussed it with all new employees as in ‘see how huge we are?’
Pathetic. Reminiscent of the Ford suit brought by the man that invented the intermittent windshield wiper. Hooray for the little guys!
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