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 ...
Well, dang...just reread the original article and you’re both right...$1200, less than it cost Powell to produce it.
Missing commas can be devastating.
Well, dang...just reread the original article and you’re both right...$1200, less than it cost Powell to produce it.
Missing commas can be devastating.
I shop at Lowes mainly now. I find their prices and service much better. Their employees treat me better there also...I find that the employees treat me better when the boss is onsite. When he is not there, they go back to their normal resting state of lazy, shiftless, and dare i say racist against white people. Normally I would not utter those words (racist - white people) but I have seen it many times with my own eyes, both as a customer and as an employee.
It is hard to tell from the picture what he is adding versus
what is normally there. You’re right he claims it cost him more than 1200.00 a unit to make, but for what? If it is just the wood additions shown I see a couple hundred bucks tops.
This has been my experience also except that the employees of either store have never treated me poorly. This seems to extend to Office Depot office supply stores as well.
Home Depot sources their water heaters (GE branded) through Rheem....I know one of the vice presidents at the company they previously bought their water heaters from (American Water Heater)...What ACTUALLY happened is that HD wanted to have their water heaters labeled as GE for name recognition. For the product to be at the price point HD wanted, the water heaters would have to have been an inferior product than what they were currently supplying. Rheem agreed to make the units for that price. American Water Heater currently supplies Lowe’s—they are most certainly NOT out of business.
Companies are free to purchase from whom they choose, and under what conditions. Aren’t you a capitalist? And I have friends who work for Home Depot—they most certainly do NOT brag to every new employee that they put a company out of business. Your husband may have had a rogue orientation, but from what I know that is not SOP....
I’m glad to hear that is not SOP but this was a new store opening and that story was repeated often during orientation.
Yes I am a capitalist but I did not like the thought that it was bragged about. That was all.
I'm sure in hindsight, HD wishes they had gone about it differently -- either paid the high price, or contracted someone else to solve the problem.
It seems that $15 million would be quite enough "punition" as it stands, but then the judge tacks on anouther $8 million to get the point across?
That doesn't come out of HD's pockets, it comes out of the pocket of every HD customer through higher prices.
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I don't know how much HD pulls this kind of stuff. I'm glad the guy won the lawsuit; I'm just kind of blown away by the amount.
“I find that the employees treat me better when the boss is onsite. “
At a Best Buy last week I was interested in a mini keyboard that had an arched shape. The demo board had a security tag on it that made it wobble when typing. When I requested to take one of the box for inspection the salesman directed me to customer service.
CS gave me the run-around “We can’t do that, we’d have to mark it as a return if you don’t buy it”. When I asked them to get the store manager they suddenly “remembered” recently opening a box for someone else to inspect a product prior to purchase.
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