When Increased Productivity Leads to More Lawsuits - How Some Efficiency Initiatives Can Land You in Legal Hot Water

摘要

For Domino's Pizza, speedy delivery was more than a promise - it was a guarantee: 30 minutes or it's free. When executives at the pizza chain coined the marketing campaign, they probably didn't think about potential legal ramifications. But legal ramifications followed. Company drivers were involved in numerous accidents that led to lawsuits, with some plaintiffs claiming that the company was liable because it encouraged its delivery people to drive unsafely in order to get pizzas to customers within the half-hour time frame. According to a report in one trade publication, the last straw for Domino's was a $79 million verdict that a St. Louis jury awarded a woman who had been hit by an 18-year-old Domino's driver who ran a red light. In 1993, the company abandoned its 30-minute guarantee.