In the news: "one employee acted alone"

Submitted by Terri Hamilton
in

Here's a link to an article about the sentence handed down on a former employee of Scotts (U.S. herbicide/pesticide/fertilizer company famous for "Miracle-Gro").

She was convicted of falsifying records, resulting in the mislabeling of $40 million worth of pesticide products. Scotts was also hit with an unprecedented fine, but claims "there's never been any evidence uncovered by anyone" that anyone other than the convicted person was responsible.

This is just so wrong, isn't it? How is it possible that NO ONE knew? Only if her manager(s) weren't paying proper attention, right?

Here's a quote: "Citing a lack of any apparent financial or vindictive motive, many current and past employees at Miracle Gro still have a hard time believing that Kendrick knowingly misled the federal government — without the knowledge of a superior or anyone."

Discussion?

Submitted by STEVENM on Wednesday October 17th, 2012 8:48 pm

It would be insane to think she did it alone.  The motive just isn't there in a "It was just her" scenario.
The staggering part is the pitifully small amount of jail time and how small the fines were compared to the amount they made off the fraud.  And that those fines were actually record breaking.  Not the successful cover up.

Submitted by Jane Cook on Thursday October 18th, 2012 6:16 am

It does seem crazy to me that the company managers/directors have no liability when they have let this happen by not managing her workload (if that was triuly why this happened). Yes sure if she was at fault then she should  take some responsibiity, but in my mind the liability should be shared by her management and management of the company for allowing the situation to happen! Though I suppose what is fair and what is illegal/legal is not necessarily the same thing sadly.

One thing to learn from this at least is that you should always tell your manager if you are struggling at work!

Jane