A US court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by victims of Rana Plaza collapse against major garment retailers Wal-Mart Stores, JC Penney, and Children’s Place.
Britain’s ‘Daily Mail’ reported a judge in Delaware agreed this week with the defendants that thelawsuit was filed after the one-year deadline applicable under Bangladeshi law had expired.
Sharifa Begum, a garment factory worker injured in the disaster, and Mahmudul Hasan Hridoy, husband of another worker who died in the incident, filed the lawsuit with Columbia District Court in April last year.
They accused the three retailers of not taking any step to ensure safety at workplaces of the makers of the apparels they were selling even after knowing the workplaces were not safe.
According to the Daily Mail, the judge also agreed that the plaintiffs had failed to establish that the US companies owed a duty of care to the workers, who were directly employed by the garment factory, not the retailers.
In one of the biggest industrial disasters, at least 1,135 died when the Rana Plaza at Savar in Dhaka collapsed on Apr 24, 2013. More than 1,000 others were maimed. The building housed mostly garment factories.
Rights organisations held negligence of the authorities responsible for the incident and also raised the issue of duty of the foreign buyers to the workers.
The buyers included major retailers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney and GAP.
Trials in three cases against the owner of the building and authorities are under way in Bangladesh.
Source: Bd news24
