Hitting someone's paycheck is taken pretty seriously by most employee's, you may get the cost of the ladder back but depending on the nature of the employee(s) in question some may get you back 10 fold by hurting your business's reputation or property, in my opinion it is better to eat the cost of the ladder and let it be a lesson learned. If it was just a brain fart than let it go, but if it is just plain old carelessness then let the employee go.
[This message has been edited by mkoloj (edited 05-15-2005).]
