That’s not how any of this works. The company would be sued and would most likely settle. The employee making 11$ a hour would be fired. The employee not reinforcing store policy is a dereliction of duty.
Why is it taken for granted that the company will be sued? Would you personally sue them in such a case? It feels quite strange to me as a European. Not sure if it's just a distortion of the internet but it seems like Americans are constantly afraid of getting sued and pondering about who to sue for (to me) ridiculous reasons. I mean a store is not kindergarten, the parent should be responsible and they should have enough common sense to know how a shopping cart works. Unless the shopping cart is seriously damaged and, I don't know, has sharp edges or similar unexpected danger, I don't see how the company has anything to do with it.
Is this sue-happiness due to the high medical costs?
I think the sue-happiness is due to high medical costs and no social safety net.
Imagine some kid falls and hits his head. The injury is so bad that the kid will be mentally disabled for the rest of his life and require full time care. You're a juror and you have the power to take away a couple of million dollars from a large company that'll make 11 billion that year in order to make sure this family's future is just a little less terrible. That this kid can get sometime of care and therapy so maybe he can talk again or just pay off some of the million dollars in medical bills they racked up on trying to save his life. I can see why it would be hard to side with Home Depot despite the fact they're not at fault.
Take a look at the number of ads you'll see for personal injury lawyers in the United States. Unfortunately it's a huge, thriving industry. I believe the "sue-happiness" is a symptom of the overall legal landscape and public mindset rather than a consequence of high medical costs.
It seems the general idea in the US is that people are assumed to be idiots, so the burden is on companies to disclaim negligence or liability over accidents that might conceivably be unforeseen (by an idiot). Unless some kind of warning is placed on the cart itself (pointing out that it could tip over), it's not a stretch to think Home Depot might be found liable for a child hurting themselves in this situation[1]. All the carts in normal grocery stores are covered in similar warning signs.
Of course, some other countries tend to place a lot more confidence in the public's level of intelligence (and that's generally a good thing), but it can also be taken too far. The optimal legal landscape would probably use something in the middle of the "bubble-wrap everything" approach and the "jump at your own risk" approach.
[1] To answer your question "Would you personally sue them in such a case?": The answer is almost always "no". But those few rare cases where someone does sue can be incredibly costly for everyone involved. The only winners are the personal injury lawyers who often make money either way.
META: I know HN discourages commenting on voting, but there seems to be some odd downvote behavior going on that I haven't seen here before. I really can't imagine why this comment would get downvoted so much. To get this number of downvotes (let alone any votes this deep in a thread) in a short time smells of abusive behavior. I don't care about the points per se; it just makes me less inclined to contribute to discussions on HN when this stuff happens.
It's difficult to understand America. On the one hand it's supposed to be individualist and emphasize everyone's own responsibility for their lives, and then there's this stuff, where everything needs to be full of warnings, otherwise people cannot be assumed to act reasonably. (The story of the woman comes to mind who microwaved a cat to death, with the intention of drying it and sued the manufacturer and won.)
why is it unfortunate when citizens exercise their rights afforded to them under the constitution? Do you have a similar problem when corporations sue each other? I've never before seen so much compassion for insurance companies.
I didn't say anything about insurance companies, and I'm not referring to cases where a person sues their insurance company for failing to cover expenses, but rather when they sue a store or manufacturer directly for negligence.
It's unfortunate that personal injury law firms make so much money by encouraging people to be "sue-happy" over dubious claims brought against companies that have little choice but to settle - not because they're doing anything seriously negligent (unless you subscribe to the bubble-wrap mentality), but because it costs less to settle and pay the plaintiff's fees than to properly defend the case in court.
I have no problem with the constitutional rights that allow these things to happen (that's not the unfortunate part). The truly unfortunate part is that the success of these types of legal threats has gone beyond just protecting the innocent; it has quite literally changed the public's mindset from one of seeking justice to one of seeking gain at the opportunity provided by an accident.
