Judge: Wal-Mart Let A NY Church Challenge Sales

Judge orders Wal-Mart to let a New York church challenge gun sales



Proposal to force tighter oversight of its sale of high-capacity guns and other potentially offensive products.

A federal judge ordered Wal-Mart Stores Inc WMT to let shareholders vote on a proposal to force tighter oversight of its sale of high-capacity guns and other potentially offensive products.

U.S. District Judge Leonard Stark in Wilmington, Delaware on Wednesday said the world’s largest retailer wrongly excluded such a proposal from Trinity Church, a historic Wall Street church, from its June 6 annual meeting.

Stark also granted Trinity an injunction preventing Wal-Mart from excluding the proposal from proxy materials for its 2015 annual meeting, saying a vote would serve the public interest.

The proposal would require the governance committee of Wal-Mart’s board to more closely examine the sale of products that might endanger public safety, hurt Wal-Mart’s reputation, or offend “family and community values” integral to the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company’s brand.

Trinity said these products might include guns with clips holding more than 10 rounds, a type it said “enabled” mass killings in Newtown, Connecticut and Aurora, Colorado; or music that depicts sex or violence. It said Wal-Mart already limits sales of such music.

The April 1 lawsuit was filed two weeks after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission issued a “no action” letter signaling it would not punish Wal-Mart for excluding the proposal.

Stark said that while it was too late to do anything about the 2014 annual meeting, the SEC letter did not end the matter. He went on to reject Wal-Mart’s argument that Trinity’s proposal was too vague, potentially covering a broad swath of products.

“The proposal does not dictate any particular outcome or micro-manage Wal-Mart’s day-to-day business,” Stark wrote.

Wal-Mart spokesman Randy Hargrove said the retailer may appeal the decision.

“Trinity’s proposal would interfere with Walmart’s ordinary business operations by seeking to regulate Walmart’s daily decisions on the hundreds of thousands of products sold,” he said.

Hargrove added that in U.S. areas it sells firearms in the United States, Wal-Mart has “a long standing commitment to do so safely and responsibly,” under standards that “greatly exceed” what the law requires.

Trinity’s rector, the Rev. James Cooper, welcomed the decision.

“On critical issues such as the sale of products that may threaten the safety or well-being of communities, corporate boards must exercise their oversight role to assure balance among customer, shareholder, and societal interests,” he said.

The case is Trinity Wall Street v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware, No. 14-00405.

Source

TO be totally honest, the "other potentially offensive products" is what scares me the most. Laws and court rulings shouldn't be that vague or broad. Just look at the patriot act, that got all kind of jacked up because of loose wording.

The radical right angst is palpable on this one. Support the church or support the corporation or support the 2nd amendment...

A church shouldn't have a say in what a corporation does to be frank.

The radical right angst is palpable on this one. Support the church or support the corporation or support the 2nd amendment...

I've got to be honest, this article is really poorly worded. I'm not clear on what's going on; if the shareholders want to vote on something and have the shares to do so, who is stopping them? Why is an outside voice influencing what shareholders vote upon?

And why is a church playing into anything?

And if it's bad for Walmart's sales, and it's a shareholder vote, why does it matter if the shareholders can just saying, "Uh, *** off, church!"?

Not adding up for me.

Also, Walmart already regulates morality for some products, which is why you won't see lottery tickets in Walmart. Gambling is the devil.

It didn't make sense to me either until I skimmed the court decision. The church is a shareholder.

A corrupt organization that doesn't pay it's employees a living wage and evades taxes is a shareholder in a corrupt corporation that doesn't pay it's employees a living wage and evades taxes... It's like hypocrisy inception.

It's so pretty though!



Can't really say that about walmart.

The love for god is shown in cash
The love they send is mailbox trash!
With every pamphlet we receive
more money Asked for godly needs,
they built a million dollar church
With money spent on gods research

Any kind of restriction on what a company can or cannot sell (baring illegal stuff of course) is beyond stupid.

The stockholders can still vote it down. All the court said was that Walmart unfairly removed the proposal from the meeting materials. The fact that it was a church that proposed it seems kind of irrelevant since any shareholder could have done the same thing.

Not sure why this was particularly newsworthy. /shrug

The fact that it was a church that proposed it seems kind of irrelevant since any shareholder could have done the same thing.

I think our resident tax expert jumped off a bridge, but I'm curious too.

Hmm, it's been, what, a month since he last posted? Weird. Anywho, people throw around phrases like "tax-exempt entity" when it comes to churches, but that makes it sound like everything they do is tax-exempt. I know they don't often pay property taxes and donations to them are tax-deductible, but I'm fairly certain that a church would be subject to the same taxes on gains from stock holdings as anyone else would be. I think that also applies to any other for-profit ventures they engage in, and any associated properties used for such purposes are taxed just like it would be for a normal business. Hopefully someone with experience can support/refute my statements, because my knowledge is limited.

That's interesting about Yankee Stadium. I wonder if there's a loophole that led to that arrangement, because any information I've found says that the tax-free arrangement is only on property that is not used for profit. Here's a source that, although incomplete, seems pretty unbiased.

Tax Exemptions of Religious Property

$1/year is hardly profitable. The lessee is allowed to profit, and one would hope pays taxes on that profit. But the holy mother the church wasn't profiting and payed no taxes on the land or the stadium.

The stockholders can still vote it down. All the court said was that Walmart unfairly removed the proposal from the meeting materials. The fact that it was a church that proposed it seems kind of irrelevant since any shareholder could have done the same thing.

Not sure why this was particularly newsworthy. /shrug