NW Arkansas Focus : Judge to toss out Coughlin’s claim
Posted on Wednesday, August 20, 2008
A judge said the lawsuit by former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executive Tom Coughlin claiming the company harmed him should be dismissed.
Benton County Circuit Judge Jay Finch said in a letter Monday to attorneys in the case he will grant Wal-Mart’s motion for summary judgment.
Coughlin’s suit is a counterclaim stemming from a legal battle between him and Wal-Mart over whether he can collect millions of dollars in retirement benefits.
Wal-Mart initially sued Coughlin, saying he shouldn’t be able to collect the benefits because he stole from the company. The trial was scheduled to start Thursday.
Coughlin filed the countersuit in June, naming Tom Mars, Wal-Mart executive vice president and general counsel, who spearheaded the 2005 internal inves- tigation that led to Coughlin’s retirement and conviction.
The countersuit claims Mars ignored evidence that could have cleared Coughlin and caused him to suffer mentally and physically. Wal-Mart denies the claims. The suit seeks unspecified damages.
Finch said in Monday’s letter that Coughlin’s suit lacks evidence to support the tort of outrage. The allegations against Mars don’t rise to the level, either, the letter states.
Finch had not issued an order Tuesday.
He set a hearing for 1: 30 p.m. today.
The countersuit claims Mars was out to destroy Coughlin’s career and further his own during the internal investigation.
Wal-Mart said in its motion for summary judgment that the countersuit is based on “spurious complaints, alleged beliefs and false assumptions.” When pressed during a recent deposition, Coughlin admitted his suit is “wild nonsensical speculation,” the motion states.
Coughlin said his suffering amounts to losing sleep and being “irritated.” “The only real outrage here is [Coughlin’s ] remarkable and continuing refusal to accept responsibility for his own criminal misdeeds,” Wal-Mart attorneys said in the motion.
Coughlin, 59, retired as vice chairman at Wal-Mart on Jan. 24, 2005, and in June the company fired him, retroactive to Jan. 22, 2005, after accusing him of embezzlement.
In January 2006, Coughlin pleaded guilty in U. S. District Court in Fort Smith to wire fraud and tax evasion. Prosecutors said he used his Wal-Mart position from 1996 to 2002 to execute a scheme to instruct subordinate employees to manipulate the travel-reimbursement and vendor-invoice accounting system at Wal-Mart to embezzle money, gift cards and products.
He’s serving 27 months of house arrest at his home in Centerton, to be followed by five years’ probation.
Wal-Mart sued to prevent Coughlin from collecting retirement benefits estimated at $ 12 million to $ 16 million.
Finch dismissed the case in January 2006, and Wal-Mart appealed. In April 2007, the Arkansas Supreme Court revived the case, agreeing with Wal-Mart that Coughlin was obligated to disclose during the retirement negotiations that he was stealing from the company.
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