"Mom Blames Target for 22-Year-Old Son's Suicide, Files

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It would still give them a chance to do a lot of damage on the rare occasion that the one being fired wants to lash out. Also, big doesn't mean fast and the one being escorted out might be able to get away from him and start turning over everything.

Like I said, I don't like the practice, but I can understand it.

Target is closing all over Canada and people are going to be out of work, you'd think there would be a mass suicide on our hands.

I read that they're planning to replace them with Wal-Mart sometime this year, though.

I wonder how much money the parents are demanding, and how many Target employees will lose their jobs to pay for it?

If anything, Walmart sucks more....

Beings Target is a pretty large chain corporation, not so sure target employees would need to be losing their job if there was a lawsuit I figured corporations of that size could likely handle a lawsuit here and there without much damage to their profits.....and according to the article it seems like the mom is more concerned with them taking responsibility for their sh*ty policy, so this kind of thing doesn't happen to someone else, but that is just the impression I got...doesn't seem like they're interested in a specific sum of money.

Very strong, well-worded agrument, fnord.

...yeah...I have no counter-argument to offer. Checkmate, well earned!

A law suit is not appropriate. However we can all do something about this.

Kauf nicht bei WalMart (Do not buy from WalMart)

That was actually Target. But my wife and I have already excluded Target from where we shop, as they contribute to anti-LGBT activists and politicians.
As a point of interest, my dad had recalled how his mother had spoken a particular high Franconian dialect of German which was mutually comprehensible with Yiddish (not all German is). Had she not passed away when I was three, you and she could have conversed.

Perhaps management should have thought of that before enacting this absurd bit of theater.

I know that rational employers do not use such tactics but instead minimize public exposure of the employee during the termination process. Access to the network is shut off, personal items are retrieved from workspaces and boxed for shipment home while the employee completes separation paperwork, surrenders access keys and is escorted from the premises by security. Every effort is made to minimize exposure to potential lawsuits.

These goings on at Target are ridiculous and the parents are quite right to sue. Not for the death but for the reasons given in their lawsuit. Target is a public company listed on the NYSE. A good HR team would probably regard this practice as a dereliction of fiduciary duty to the shareholders.

You're right. Companies do take termination very seriously these days.

They'd do anything to avoid a public spectacle.

If the parents sue on behalf of the son for the emotional trauma he allegedly suffered, then the defense may press the idea that some other cause contributed more to their son's suicide than being "Shame-Marched" through the store.

They'll ask if he had any girlfriends, if he was gay, or if one of the parents has ever abused him. They will ask if he ever showed any interest in firearms, drugs, or violent entertainment. They will bring in school counsellors, teachers, and psychologists who will testify that he was a troubled youth for many years before his suicide. They will make every effort to paint him as an anti-social loner who was already mere days from inflicting his own death on himself.

In other words, the lawyers for Target will very likely drag the family through Hell in a full-frontal assault on the integrity and stability of their son, and paint the family with the broadest brush possible as a dysfunctional and abusive gang of money-grubbing monsters who cared so little about their son that they ignored all of the warning signs of his impending and inevitable suicide.

It doesn't even have to be true, either. As long as the majority of the jurors believe Target's lawyers, the parents get nothing, and they will be on the hook for legal costs, as well.

They should negotiate an out-of-court settlement, instead.

^this

A clever attorney for the parents will point out that any such attempt to smear the boy will be the focus of an intense social media campaign and insinuate that hordes of activists are preparing a "boycott target" campaign. I can see the headline on HuffPo now. Google tells me there are already 116,000 stories about this case online.

The attorneys for the parent might suggest that perhaps Target would better spend the money they are considering pursuing a "defame the dead autisitic boy we hounded into suicide" campaign on something that will do more to burnish the company image, like a baby seal hunt. If Target comes out guns blazing and runs into a competent opponent, they will feel the sting.

I find Target a convenient place to get certain things and their pharmacy hours in my neighborhood are good. If they play this the wrong way, though, they would certainly lose my business. All things being equal, I prefer Target to Walmart when I am looking for certain types of thing, but this could change my decision.

Maybe with all the money they saved by shutting down their entire Canadian operation, they don't have to compete anymore or worry about customer sentiment? They might want to apologize and offer a substantial settlement ASAP. Perhaps put some funding into scholarships for autistic people or something like that. I'm sure a good PR team can come up with better suggestions than "trash the reputation of the dead autistic person we wrongfully accused of theft."

I may have a word with the manager of my local Target and ask them about this story.

Fnord, Adamantium: you both make really good points about how this could go. It may well be split in the court of public opinion.

Considering how much exposure this story has gotten online (with most of it slanted in favor of the young man), it might be wiser for Target to settle out of court. It is the "big bad corporation" vs. the "fragile autistic kid they drove to suicide"...yep, they may lose a lot of business if they don't "play nice."

Thanks for the replies. I honestly did not expect this thread to expand to 5 pages.