Portlanders need no introduction to New
Seasons, a local grocery chain with a near-fanatical following. One key
to the company’s success has been its reputation for ethical business
practices.
This spring Eileen
Brady, a New Seasons co-owner, has signaled she’s strongly considering a
2012 campaign for mayor. If she runs, we’re sure to hear more about her
role shaping New Seasons’ celebrated corporate values.
But a recent court case offers a different view of “the friendliest store in town.”
On Thursday, May 12, a
Multnomah County jury ruled against New Seasons and awarded $667,742 to
Genevieve Luikart, a 26-year-old bicyclist who was struck by a New
Seasons truck.
According
to court documents, Luikart was riding south on Northeast 15th Avenue
on Sept. 23, 2009. She had a green light and was crossing Northeast
Broadway when a New Seasons delivery truck turned left onto Broadway,
plowing into her.
The impact smashed
Luikart’s upper jaw, broke her left shoulder, fractured her right wrist
and left her with severe dental injuries. But Luikart’s attorney,
Michael Colbach, says New Seasons’ insurer refused to pay.
Instead, Colbach
says, New Seasons blamed the accident on Luikart, who has no memory of
the crash. The lone eyewitness of the crash said Luikart was not at
fault, and the jury agreed.
“They tried to take
advantage of a girl who had amnesia and was very badly injured,” Colbach
says. “Taking care of her would have been the right thing to do, and it
would have been a great way to spread some goodwill. But at the end of
the day, the bottom line always comes first.”
“Certainly
we are not a company that puts the bottom line first,” says New Seasons
CEO Lisa Sedlar. “It was an accident, and we’re very sorry for it.”
Brady
helped found New Seasons in 1999 along with her husband, Brian Rohter,
who went on to become president and CEO before retiring in 2010. Brady
has never held an official position in the company nor sat on its board
of directors, but says she maintains an ownership stake. She declined to
say how large her stake is.
Brady
says she heard of the crash soon after it happened and considers it a
tragedy. She says she feels a personal connection to the case as a biker
and a mom who has had a child injured in a car accident.
Brady
says she did not follow the case, and she repeatedly declined to
comment on the way it was handled by New Seasons, saying she can’t speak
for the company. When WW informed Brady of the large jury award, her response was “thank god.”
Luikart is exactly
the kind of voter Brady would hope to win over. At the time of the
accident, she worked at Zenger Farm in Southeast Portland and commuted
by bike to cut her fossil-fuel use. She has since moved to an organic
farm in Southern Oregon, and WW’s attempts to reach her there were unsuccessful.
After Luikart sued,
New Seasons argued in court papers that Luikart was negligent for
speeding through a crosswalk and failing to keep a proper lookout.
New Seasons offered
to settle the case for $130,000, Colbach says, the approximate amount
the jury eventually found would only have covered her medical expenses.
Colbach refused, and the case went to trial.
“They were just
hoping they’d get lucky because she couldn’t remember,” Colbach says.
“They just continued to blame her for the accident and hoped the jury
would fall for it.”
Sedlar says New
Seasons was not responsible for the legal strategy. Rather, shes says,
it was the store’s insurance company and the attorney it hired, Maria
Liesl “Sam” Ruckwardt of Portland’s Smith Freed & Eberhard.
Ruckwardt did not return phone calls seeking comment.
“It wasn’t something where we were trying to deny our responsibility in any way,” Sedlar says.
Brady says her personal beliefs and the New Seasons philosophy still apply.
“Good businesses,” she says, “do the right thing.”
FACT: Eileen Brady is chair emeritus on the board of Zenger Farm, where Genevieve Luikart was employed when she was hit by a New Seasons truck.
If Eileen Brady was not "maybe" going to run for mayor this article would NEVER have written. what a pathetic attempt to try to smear a great local company.
Hello Willamette Week Readers,
Here's what New Seasons Market has to say about this story (also posted on our Blog):
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
I want to let you know about an accident that we were involved in on September 23, 2009.
One of our staff members, who was driving a New Seasons Market van, accidentally hit a bicyclist in Northeast Portland. As a result of this accident, the cyclist was seriously injured. We’re very sorry that our actions caused someone harm and I personally extend my apologies and best wishes for a full recovery to the cyclist and her family.
As often happens in accidents like this, our insurance company played the lead role in compensating the injured cyclist. Our insurance company will pay for her current and her future medical expenses and for what the insurance companies call “non-economic damages.” We’re pleased that the insurance company will be making this payment. It’s the right thing to do since it was our fault.
Even though this was an accident caused by the actions of a business, the system works a lot like your own car insurance works. When a driver gets in an accident the insurance company is notified and the parties begin the process of determining how to settle the case. We never disputed our fault in harming the cyclist. The lawyer for our insurance company disagreed with the lawyer for the injured cyclist about how much should be paid for the “non economic damages.” As a result, the case went to court and left the final decision to a jury of impartial citizens so they could consider all the facts and make a decision. The trial occurred last week and the jury came back with an award that was a compromise between what the two lawyers were asking for. We accept and support their decision. As I said, we are very sorry this accident happened and that the cyclist was injured.
We’re fortunate to live in a place that encourages people to ride bikes. We are a company that actively supports staff and customers in using alternative methods of transportation, including cycling. Every one of our stores offers bike parking for our customers and separate bike parking for staff (and it seems as we are always adding more to both). Our new Hawthorne store has more bike parking than car parking and the often-empty rooftop parking lot shows how devoted our customers are to riding and walking to the store! Every year New Seasons Market participates in the Bike Commute Challenge and most years several of our stores place in the top ten. Our staff delivers Meals on Wheels by bike on company time and we have offered bike repair classes to staff and customers. We have loaner bike helmets, locks, patch kits and pumps for our customers and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve received a customer comment card thanking one of our staff for helping them to fix a flat! We were one of the original business sponsors of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and we often partner with the Community Cycling Center.
This accident touches us in a very personal way because, as a company that encourages commuter cycling, we unfortunately have had our share of staff members who have been injured by an automobile while cycling. Some were even involved in hit and run accidents and didn’t have the opportunity to have the other party’s insurance company cover their medical expenses. In those cases our staff came together to help our injured co-worker with their uncovered medical expenses by donating vacation time and by making financial contributions. We have created light-duty or part-time positions for staff cyclists who were injured in auto accidents and couldn’t physically work their “regular” job in the store as they did before the accident.
Even with the obvious commitment that New Seasons Market has to our cycling community, this tragic accident clearly shows that we need to do better. It’s a struggle for me to find a silver lining in this situation, but I can assure you that, for us, it has elevated the critical importance of safely sharing the road to an even higher level.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments.
Lisa Sedlar
It’s sad that this writer appears to have jumped on the first opportunity that arose to shed a negative light on a company that is staple business model for what Portland is all about: inviting, locally owned and operated, environmentally conscious, progressive, and supportive of our local farmers and industry.
It seems that the author did absolutely no research on the laws and processes for these types of cases prior to wagging a finger at New Seasons Market. In these situations whereas an individual is injured in an insurable accident, the company itself has no say or control in the resulting litigation or outcome. The claim is turned over to the insurance company who hires an attorney, develops a legal plan, determines whether to settle, and how much money to pay out. The company at fault, in essence, has absolutely no input and doesn’t have the legal right to pay what they feel is ethical or fair out of their own pocket.
New Seasons is a positive presence in our Portland community who is active many charities and does its best to support our neighborhoods and farms. We need to support this local company that has worked to support the people around us…not look for any excuse to “expose” them for an issue in which they have no control of the outcome.
What does your employees' accidents -'hit and run' to evoke sympathy? - have to do with the price of beans? New Seasons could have handled this better but Portlanders are indeed fanatical about your company, just like the idiots on the right who see nothing wrong ever with their heroes. There are no perfect people and NS could have done better.
Wait a minute. This story doesn't even say whether New Seasons was involved in the litigation. Did Luikart sue New Seasons, or the insurance company, which the article doesn't even name? If New Seasons turned the claim over to its insurance company, which it hires for the purpose of paying such claims, and if it was the insurance company which argued Luikart was at fault and offered an inadequate settlement, only to lose when Luikart sued for more, why is the story about the co-owner Brady, who had nothing whatsoever to do with the case? The more active co-owner Sedlar published a lengthy comment in response to this story which indicates she is sympathetic to the Luikart and is happy that the insurance company will have to pay more. So why is WWeek trying to drag Brady into this?
Wow, only in Portland could a true home grown company that so visibly eschews what most of hate about big corporations get such a hatchet job by your stirring the pot trumps credibility - go after Krogers or Trader Joe's or Safeway or Target or some other multinational conglomerate. How about a substantive comparison about how much of those companies profits stay in Oregon or how employee compenstion/benefits compare. That would be compelling if New Seasons fell short. As a shopper, what i like about new seasons is how you feel like you are part of a broader community and htey are happy to have you there and the employees seem to take pride in what they do. I say we need to support more New Seasons in Portland.