40 Comments

Poor judgment by security who decided to bring in the po-po (assuming her story is accurate). Should just have let her pay for the stuff and go.

I’m thinking that $150k is insane but if she gets the right jury, she will have discovered a nice little business in shaking down big business.

Who hasn’t done what she did occassionally? sometimes i put my jacket in the child’s seat on top of something and don’t realize what i did until i am out at the car. or you put something on the bottom, forget, and then neither you nor the cashier notice.

First, what kinds of idiot training do they have there? you should be checking under all purses, etc. if you are a cashier. its just good business.

Second, i think the security guy went a little far. but i find it curious that she was charged and then acquitted. surely the prosecutor wouldn’t have brought the case unless he/she thought there was something to it, right?

and on the other hand, i wasn’t there. maybe when she claimed to have forgotten it, she was a terrible actor. maybe he has security footage showing she was aware of the stuff under her purse before leaving the store.

I guess this one goes down the middle with me. not a clear case of lawsuit abuse in my mind, but some room for suspicion.

Why should it be poor judgment to call the police when you think someone was, or might have been, shoplifting from you?

Being acquitted merely means the judge/jury felt that there was reasonable doubt as to her guilt, but that could also allow that Wal-Mart had reasonable doubt as to her innocence. Apparently the D.A/police doubted her protestations, too, so much so that they took her to trial in order to be sure.

I appreciate the diversity comment but it is SOP to include in the lawsuit the actual tortfeasor.

It is hard to conjure up a scenario where the case makes sense because I have a hard time imaging a scenario where you would not at least suspect shoplifting when someone takes something without paying. The smart play would also be to set it up to pretend if you got caught that it was a pure accident. So wouldn’t you set it up that way? Should the store be ready for that set up?

The facts as quoted show probable cause for the arrest, in my state that’s enough to defeat the claim. I wouldn’t take the case. That’s a pretty big purse though.

I wonder if there is more to this case than has been reported. According to the report, the plaintiff put her prescriptions and coffee on the conveyor belt but the cashier failed to scan the coffee. The receipt she had was evidently just for her prescriptions. Assuming that she had a typical can or bag of coffee, that’s rather a large item for a cashier to overlook, especially when the only other item is a presumably small bag of prescription medicine. This suggests that some sort of disturbance took place or that the cashier was really out of it. Also, at all of the large stores I know of that have pharmacies, you pay for prescriptions at the pharmacy counter, not at the main checkout. Is that the case at Wal-Mart? I’m wondering if what happened was that a harried cashier saw the prescription medicine, observed that they had already been paid for, missed the coffee, and waved the customer through?

[…] Nutty Lawsuit Thread Woman sues Wal-Mart because they arrested her when she tried to walk out of the store without paying… Hmm. . […]

I was a Wal-Mart cashier several years ago and…

1) Customers had the option of paying for prescriptions at the pharmacy or the front checkouts. Most paid at the pharmacy, but a steady trickle paid up front.
2) If you scan 1000+ items a day, mistakes will occur, including some truly boneheaded ones. A customer once had to remind me to scan a giant microwave I had helped her load into her cart ten seconds previously.
3) Some shoplifters lift in such a way that it can be spun as an innocent mistake. If they get caught before leaving, they’ll pay for the item and return it later.

“what kind of idiots training do they have there?”

I’d guess that it is likely the cheapest training they can find… and that’s assuming the employees are in the US legally. Of course, I could be wrong and things may have changed since I read “Nickeled and Dimed” (B. Ehrenreich). If, however, circumstances have not changed (substantially), WM should not expect hawkish vigilance from its employees.

Walmart is caught between a rock and a hard place. Anything they do is going to be wrong.

If you take A.W.’s outlook on this, the cashier is supposed to come away from the register and search the cart of each customer for items that they may have forgotten. Can you imagine the outcry if they were to do that?

In my opinion they did the best thing they could. Call the Police and let them sort it out. That’s what they are paid for.

A few comments in response.

First, I’m not saying she is clearly she is right or wrong. I take overlawyered as having posted this as a case of lawsuit abuse. Lawsuit abuse exists, but I am not convinced it is happening here.

I think really to know if she is wrong or not, you have to have been there. You have to have seen her face when she was confronted, you have to see the evidence the security guards had. The fact is that if you had that kind of evidence maybe it would have been clear that one side or the other was wrong. My real point is that there are too many unknowns to declare one side clearly right or wrong.

And I acknowledged the fact that she was charged was evidence against her. And I will be the first to say that “not guilty” is not the same as “innocent.” But at the same time a jury of her peers did find the evidence at least inconclusive after the fact. All I am saying is that the evidence is inconclusive here, too.

And I do challenge anyone telling me I am wrong to say they have never accidentally walked out with an item without paying for it.

As for training, maybe it was harsh to call it idiot but I have worked at Target in the past. Its not hard to keep this from happening. The carts are essentially see-thru. So all you do is say, “hey can you lift that purse real quick?” and you would have seen it. I was specifically taught things like, if a person buys a large plastic bin, and make sure it is empty before they leave. We understood that security was part of our job, too. and believe you me, if I was the supervisor of that cashier I would have chewed him or her out for this.

But my point isn’t to say this plaintiff is right, just that I think its unfair to conclude without much evidence that she is wrong.

WM is a big target for shoplifters but this seems like bad judgment on the part of store management. They should have simply let her pay for the items, as she offered to do, and leave. Yes, maybe she’d just come back and steal something else later. So then you catch her next time, when she’s a repeat offender and it’s not so ambiguous.

I’m sure this happens all the time. A few weeks ago I bought a $1 pocket comb at WalMart. It fell out of the basket (where I keep small items) and down into the cart, and I forgot all about it at checkout. I realized it was still in the cart when I got to the exit. So I got back in line and paid for it.

And I do challenge anyone telling me I am wrong to say they have never accidentally walked out with an item without paying for it.

I accept.

You’re wrong.

The woman concealed two items and then walked past a working cash register as well as the last cash register without paying for the items. That’s shoplifting. That is theft.

WalMart was well within their rights to press the charges against the woman for her actions.

Could WalMart and the prosecutor used more discretion and not prosecuted? It doesn’t matter. Not one iota. The ludicrous theory of her lawsuit seems to be “yes, I walked out with the items and I didn’t pay for them, but how dare they arrest me for a crime!”

That is lawsuit abuse. That is the woman suing the company for her actions. It is a case of demanding that others be responsible when she was not.

Two final points: No, I have never walked out of a store with items for which I have not paid. Secondly, as a former DM and DSM, I wouldn’t have yelled at the cashier, I would have terminated their employment.

Gitar

You are entitled to your opinion but not to your own set of facts.

> The woman concealed two items and then walked past a working cash register as well as the last cash register without paying for the items. That’s shoplifting. That is theft.

That is not an accurate representation of the facts. Here’s what the article says:

> Macon claims she was shopping at the O’Fallon Wal-Mart on Oct. 14, 2007, and had placed a number of items in her shopping cart, including a prescription, a bag of coffee, coasters and pajama bottoms.

> When she was finished shopping, Macon proceeded to the cash register, where she placed on the conveyor belt all of the items she intended to purchase except the coasters and pajama bottoms, which she claims not to have seen as they were hidden beneath her purse, according to the complaint.

Now that is only from her side. I would like to hear what WM says on the subject. But right now the only information we have is her side and so I see no basis of your claim that she “walked past a working cash register” when in fact the only evidence we have says she stopped at a register, paid for other things, and then walked out with the merchandise.

And whatever the facts were, the jury at the very least said she did not commit theft. Now I lecture people all the time that “not guilty” is not the same as “innocent.” OJ, for instance, was not found criminally liable for murdering his wife and that tennis player, but i think he did it, and unless that civil jury thought he accidentally killed them, I would say the civil jury thought he did, too. So obviously it is possible she is every bit the thief you claim her to be. But right now we don’t have enough evidence to make that claim out.

And it is equally possible that even though she was not a thief that WM was justified in calling the cops and detaining her. But my point is we don’t have enough evidence to make that claim out, either. Right now we are in a situation where the fairest answer is a giant “we don’t know.”

And for you to act like you can be certain that 1) she is a thief and 2) this is therefore lawsuit abuse, just is you showing your bias.

> No, I have never walked out of a store with items for which I have not paid.

Not even accidentally? Well I guess the rest of us mere mortals are not gifted with the perfection you have. Most of us have forgotten on occasion. It happens. I have done it several times, largely when I put soda on the bottom rack of my cart and forgot. And in each case, I either returned it or paid for it.

Seriously, Gitar, do you just disagree with me because you have decided I must automatically be wrong on everything? Because I don’t find that last denial at all plausible. Everyone has done it at least once—accidentally walking out with something you didn’t pay for. The moral test is what you do when you discover you had done so.

> When she was finished shopping, Macon proceeded to the cash register, where she placed on the conveyor belt all of the items she intended to purchase except the coasters and pajama bottoms, which she claims not to have seen as they were hidden beneath her purse, according to the complaint.

If I go to Walmart and intend to purchase four items, I generally notice when only two items make it on to the conveyor. Even if I have put my purse in the child carrier area.

Kimsch

Fair enough, but we don’t know how many items there were there. reread the quoted passages carefully. that is one of the questions left unanswered.

Here’s what we do know. The store security felt there was enough justification to detain her. the police felt they had grounds to arrest her. but the jury decided she was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. is it wholly possible that she was in fact trying to steal and they just didn’t have the evidence to prove it. orrr, maybe the authorities over reacted.

Once again, i am not here saying one side is clearly right or wrong. I think the most rational answer is we have no idea which side is right or wrong. and so i feel it is wrong to hold this up as an example of lawsuit abuse.

i mean aren’t you a little bothered by the idea that an honest mistake could lead to these people holding you and arresting you? do we want to say that stores should be able to restrain people willy-nilly?

i mean seriously, this is all over some coasters and PJ bottoms. i would bet the total cost of them is less than $20. A little proportion should come into all of this, shouldn’t it? when the issue is $20, get the stuff back, get her information and maybe a picture, and then LET HER GO. and if the cops want to arrest her, let them find her.

I am reminded of the case where a 13 year old girl was strip searched to find drugs. what were they looking for? Advil. prescription strength advil. the supreme court quite rationally said, more or less, if we were talking about crack maybe this is justified, but advil? are you kidding me?

So all this for $20? Are you kidding me? they should let her go and let the police decide what to do with her.

The police did decide what to do with her. They charged her with shoplifting, and the DA thought the case nontrivial enough to prosecute.

Now I’m paranoid. I once made it all the way out to my car with a bag of charcoal under the cart that I forgot about and the cashier didn’t notice. I didn’t wish to go through the check-out line again and my baby was done with shopping, so I walked the cart back to the store and pushed it inside with the charcoal on it. I know I should have put the charcoal back on the shelf, but I was annoyed.

The cashier should have noticed it was under the cart, and I should have remembered I put it there.

That said, I used to be a cashier and when you have a zillion people in your line, with screaming children and running price checks it’s very easy to forget to look in someone’s cart.

Ted

Absolutely true. And that has some weight, but i still think we can’t draw any conclusions about this. the police and yes even prosecutors can be wrong, even tortuously so. So I can’t honestly say that i know who is right or wrong here. But i think its a stretch to call this clear lawsuit abuse.

And let me give a disclaimer i often give on other sites. if i sound very negative on this site, its only because i don’t tend to speak up unless i disagree, at least to the extent of wanting to file a concurring opinion.

i respectfully think OL is wrong on this one, but OL is fighting on the side of angels in general. our system is out of control and indeed when we know the facts it might become clear that she is wrong, too, and thus a good example of an abusive lawsuit. But we don’t know enough to say that yet. That’s my criticism. We don’t know enough to draw a conclusion.

I mean i work in as the attorney of a health care company. i see the bad side of our legal system every day. I know lawsuit abuse is real and a serious problem. but i don’t see how in fairness we can say this is a case of it. we can suspect, we can wonder, but it is quite plausible that it will turn out that she was completely in the right and they did overreact. we all know this happens. i mean those ubiquitos zero tolerance stories are exhibit A in the idea that some people fail to recognize when discretion is warranted.

Btw, i will add that i was unclear before. when i said they should let her go, i meant after they got their stuff back. and of course by all means take her picture, write down her license plate and even ask her for her name and to see her driver’s license. I try to be clear but failed to be, there.

You are entitled to your opinion but not to your own set of facts.

I stand by my statement as evidenced by this passage you cited: which she claims not to have seen as they were hidden beneath her purse, according to the complaint.

Is it your contention that the items that were hidden under the purse burrowed underneath the purse by themselves? That maybe somehow the purse was bored and jumped on top of the items?

No, she put the purse on top of the items and in doing so, concealed them.

So what part of the facts am I not entitled to? The fact that she concealed the items? Or the fact that she left the store without paying for them?

Most of us have forgotten on occasion. It happens. I have done it several times, largely when I put soda on the bottom rack of my cart and forgot. And in each case, I either returned it or paid for it.

I know it happens. You asked that someone say you were wrong who had never done something similar. I never have. Now you want to change the focus and seem to be saying that because people do it by accident, no one should be able to say that the woman and by extension you, were wrong.

Does that mean that you believe that people who are speeding and have lost track of what the speedometer is saying should not get a ticket because “everyone speeds?”

Police have discretion in these matters but what is nuts is that the woman is suing the company for making a complaint after concealing items and walking out without paying for them. She is throwing her irresponsibility back onto WalMart in a case of “I am not responsible for my actions – you are.”

Everyone has done it at least once—accidentally walking out with something you didn’t pay for. The moral test is what you do when you discover you had done so.

No everyone hasn’t. Maybe I am a little more conscience about it because I worked in LOP and saw the games that people play. Maybe in your world people never steal and never put things under their purse with the intent to steal, but in the real world, they do.

Is it your contention that the items that were hidden under the purse burrowed underneath the purse by themselves? That maybe somehow the purse was bored and jumped on top of the items?

Gitacarver,

The error in your argument is that you are assuming that because someone intentionally acted in a way that caused items to be hidden, she intended to hide them. That assumption is false. For example, suppose that she had a large purse, which was initially sitting in the child carrier. When she picked up the pajama bottoms, she may have found that they did not sit well on top of her purse, so she lifted the purse, put the pajama bottoms in the child carrier, and replaced the purse, now on top of the pajama bottoms. In this scenario, the pajama bottoms end up hidden, but the shopper had no intention of hiding them.

The general principle involved is that the intentionality of an act does not necessarily imply the intentionality of the consequences of that act.

Unfortunately, we don’t know how many items she had, or other details. Hopefully there is a video tape of the checkout. Most women pick up their purses at the checkout in order to pay for the purchase. If she had just a few items it seems odd that she would forget 2 of them.
I believe Walmart may owe her an apology if the video looks like it was an accident, but I don’t see where she should get money for it, she really did take items, we just don’t know her intent.

St. Clair County is a poor jurisdiction for a defendant company. I don’t know why a company would want to do business there.

The general principle involved is that the intentionality of an act does not necessarily imply the intentionality of the consequences of that act.

Whether or whether not she intended to conceal them is not the point. The point is that the items were concealed and she is the one that concealed them.

Once that occurred and once she walked out the door past the registers, she had met the requirements to be stopped by the store and detained. Quite frankly, the store doesn’t care about the “why” at that moment. All they know is that their merchandise is walking out the door and they have the person who is taking it.

The store has met their burden of stopping the woman and detaining her.

After that, the issue of her state of mind enters into the legal proceedings. It does not enter into what the store did.

That is really my point. The store did what they are legally and morally allowed to do – they stopped a woman who had concealed items and exited the store without paying for them. That is why the suit is ridiculous.

Someone said that the items may have come up to a total of $20 and the store should have let it go. The problem is that the store, who spends a great deal of money to getting people into the store, is probably going to have to sell the same items to 10 people before breaking even.

It can be said that the woman made an honest mistake. The problem is that the store didn’t make a mistake. Why should a store be sued when the store didn’t make an mistake?

Not to jump into the merits, but there are reasons other than jurisdiction for naming the guard individually in the suit. Most importantly: if you don’t, then the defendant will move for summary judgment (after the statute of limitations has run) claiming that you cannot recover for the guard’s actions, but rather solely for actions of the corporation as a corporation, which is quite hard to do.

Walmart has a damned if you do damned if you don’t problem here. Apparently, in this case, they didn’t investigate. They simply found out that she had left without paying for some items and decided to let the police do their jobs. Had Walmart investigated, they could have risked all kinds of liability. The smart policy is to let the police do their jobs.

At that point, unless some Walmart employee gave the police or prosecutors false information, I don’t see that she has a case. It’s objectively reasonable to let the police decide how to handle this once you know somebody left without paying for something, and Walmart has no responsibility for what the police or prosecutors did. Calling the police or requesting help from prosecutors is absolutely privileged (asking the government for help always is, see your constitution and that bit about petitioning for redress of grievances).

Gitar

> Is it your contention that the items that were hidden under the purse burrowed underneath the purse by themselves?

I contend she says she intentionally put the purse on top of the goods. The result was she concealed them both from her sight and everyone else’s. Therefore by her contention because it was out of sight it was out of mind, and she forgot.

Is it possible that she is really a grifter who is really trying to create a “fig leaf” to protect her bad intent? Well, maybe so, but in the absence of evidence to support that contention, she deserved the benefit of the doubt.

> So what part of the facts am I not entitled to?

The part where you implied she didn’t even stop at a register. She did, according to the complaint. She paid for some goods and not for others.

> I never have.

Well everyone here can judge how credible that statement is for itself.

> Does that mean that you believe that people who are speeding and have lost track of what the speedometer is saying should not get a ticket because “everyone speeds?”

Comparing it to speeding is apples and oranges. Different crimes have different mens rea requirements. As a matter of black letter law, you cannot be convicted of accidental larceny. You have to intend to steal it—that is you have to intend to wrongfully deprive the person of the property. And that is probably why she was acquitted—because the jury was not sure she had that intent.

By your logic, if you pick up the wrong coat off a coat rack at a party, you have committed theft. That is, thankfully, not the law.

And indeed speeding is a different animal. Intent is not typically an element of the offense.

And my point in saying everyone does it was not to say it was okay to commit a crime because everyone does it, but to say that it was such a common mistake that it was credible to believe she had made a mistake, too.

> Maybe in your world people never steal and never put things under their purse with the intent to steal, but in the real world, they do.

Of course they do. But you want to address that problem by deciding that everyone who does that however accidentally is guilty of a crime. Thank God, the law doesn’t say that.

> Once that occurred and once she walked out the door past the registers, she had met the requirements to be stopped by the store and detained.

Actually there are two tiers of justified force, here, which is what we are talking about.

First, they may take reasonable steps to recover their stuff. But that wasn’t really an issue in her account. She offered immediately to give it back or pay for it.

Then apart from steps needed to protect their property they may can make a citizen’s arrest, but only if they reasonably believe she actually committed a crime. And if they didn’t bother to find out anything more than “she took our stuff” then no, they didn’t have reason to believe she committed a crime, because most people understand that taking a thing by accident is not a crime. Sheesh.

> Quite frankly, the store doesn’t care about the “why” at that moment.

Well, it should and indeed must. Let’s hope for Walmart’s sake, then, they did.

And frankly its bad PR. If I thought a store would treat me as guilty until proven innocent, I wouldn’t shop there. But to be fair to Walmart, we don’t know they did. Like with a lot of critical facts, we just don’t know.

That is why it is unfair, I think, to imply that this is a frivolous suit. It might turn out to be, but we really don’t know, yet.

David

> Apparently, in this case, they didn’t investigate.

We don’t really know that either. As I have said repeatedly, when WM responds it might have some piece of incredibly damning evidence. Like here is a scenario. Imagine they have video showing her very carefully making sure the purse covered it, and then when she thinks no one is looking, adjusting it to make it cover it better as she waited in line for the cashier. Now I am making stuff up just to show an example of just how much we don’t know, but if my hypothetical came true, I would be the first to call this suit ridiculous.

Really it is a complete mistake to judge the quality of a case by the complaint.

> Had Walmart investigated, they could have risked all kinds of liability.

Um, bull. What liability would have ensued if they, for instance, checked the tape? And as noted above, if they don’t have a reasonable belief that this was no accident, then they are liable.

Now let me distinguish here between calling the police and making a citizen’s arrest. They absolutely had a right to call the police and what the police did after that is not Walmart’s issue. But they took it further. They detained her, and contrary to what everyone here seems to think, they have to meet certain legal requirements before they can do that. one of them is that they have to reasonably believe she did that on purpose.

I mean seriously, do you really want to give any other person the right to detain you—to use force if necessary—because of what might actually just be an accident? Really? Personally the idea creeps me out.

And for all we know, it might turn out that they were in the right. But right now we don’t know enough to draw any kind of conclusion.

I contend she says she intentionally put the purse on top of the goods.

Okay, so she did something intentionally that concealed the items.

The part where you implied she didn’t even stop at a register. She did, according to the complaint. She paid for some goods and not for others.

There was no implication at all. It was a direct statement. She walked past registers without paying for the items. That is a statement of fact. You know, the fact that you keep saying that I an not entitled to.

The fact of the matter is she concealed items, and then left the store without paying for them.

Well everyone here can judge how credible that statement is for itself.

I am sorry that your ability to keep track of things in a cart is not up to others. I talked to a few friends about this case and several said they never had never walked passed a register without paying for the item and some did. Unlike you, I acknowledge that the experiences of people may be different.

Additionally, I highly doubt if many people have ever concealed an item and then walked out of the store with it. That is what the lady did. So in your words, let’s compare apples to apples.

Then apart from steps needed to protect their property they may can make a citizen’s arrest, but only if they reasonably believe she actually committed a crime. And if they didn’t bother to find out anything more than “she took our stuff” then no, they didn’t have reason to believe she committed a crime, because most people understand that taking a thing by accident is not a crime. Sheesh.

In many states, the act of concealing the item demonstrates the intent. Then you have the second act of walking past the last working cash register without paying for the item.

You have two acts that demonstrate intent.

Well, maybe so, but in the absence of evidence to support that contention, she deserved the benefit of the doubt.

The evidence is that she did that deeds that created the situation. The contrary “evidence” is she says she didn’t mean to. Have you ever met, talked to, or detained a shoplifter before? Do you think that when they are stopped they all say “I meant to steal this” or do you think that the more common “excuse” is “I forgot to pay for it?”

And that is probably why she was acquitted—because the jury was not sure she had that intent.

I don’t have a problem with the jury’s verdict. I do have a problem with her suing WalMart based on her actions.

Well, it should and indeed must. Let’s hope for Walmart’s sake, then, they did.

It does not have to be. Not at the store level.

That is why it is unfair, I think, to imply that this is a frivolous suit.

The woman was arrected because of her actions. Not because of what WalMart did. She put herself in the position. WalMart did nothing wrong. For her to sue WalMart because of her actions is the epitome of a frivolous lawsuit.

Gitar

> Okay, so she did something intentionally that concealed the items.

She did something with that result. Which is not the same as saying she intentionally concealed them, you know.

And even intentional concealment by itself is not a crime. Indeed I told you what you had to prove to make it a crime.

> She walked past registers without paying for the items.

After paying for other items at a cash register. You know that is deceptive to leave that out. I know it. And anyone else who pays attention knows it. and you can keep disputing that you were being deceptive until the cows come home, but the truth is the truth.

> I talked to a few friends about this case

Yeah, I believe that. /sarcasm.

> Additionally, I highly doubt if many people have ever concealed an item and then walked out of the store with it.

I think if they put something on top of the item with the result of concealing it, the chances that they would forget goes up considerably, don’t you? You know, out of sight, out of mind.

> In many states, the act of concealing the item demonstrates the intent.

You are conflating intentionally concealing something, with an intentional action that has the side effect of concealing it. And as a matter of fact taking an action to conceal an item, with the intent of concealing an item, is evidence of intent in every state. For one thing is is called consciousness of guilt. But we do things that have the effect of concealment without the intention to conceal. Like I would put my wallet down on my dresser and my wife would put a pile of clothes in front of it. she didn’t INTEND to hide my wallet from me, it just happened.

You must be a pleasure to live with given that you think every accident is an intentional act.

> Then you have the second act of walking past the last working cash register without paying for the item.

Which, by her account, was not even done knowingly. I know you are having trouble with the concept that you have to have intent to commit a crime, but there you go.

> The contrary “evidence” is she says she didn’t mean to.

And that people do it all the time. Yes, the default is innocent until proven guilty.

> you ever met, talked to, or detained a shoplifter before? Do you think that when they are stopped they all say “I meant to steal this” or do you think that the more common “excuse” is “I forgot to pay for it?”

Brilliant! So since bad people can lie and say the same things that good people say, lets just assume that any time anyone asserts a valid defense, they are lying. I mean you haven’t even set eyes on this woman and indeed only know the barest of facts but you are ready to call her a liar.

No, sorry, just because bad people can lie and claim they have a defense, doesn’t mean we don’t still require evidence before assuming they are lying.

> I don’t have a problem with the jury’s verdict. I do have a problem with her suing WalMart based on her actions.

Because you apparently have faith in their infalliability. Now I don’t hate Walmart the way some people do. I don’t shop there unless I literally have no choice, but that has to do with smaller things, like the way the stores feel clausterphobic, or the way that walmart shoppers seem to have no respect for your car, leaving carts where they can roll into your vehicle. I don’t know why its different at Target, but it is.

But that being said, while Walmart is not evil, it is a collective of human beings and as such, it is flawed. In other words, I don’t trust ANYONE as much as you apparently trust Walmart.

> It does not have to be. Not at the store level.

Actually if you are going to detain her beyond what is necessary to retrieve your property, black letter law says you have to have evidence of her intent. It is not enough to say she left the store with their property, but you have to be able to say you have reason to believe she did it intentionally.

> WalMart did nothing wrong.

Really? You can’t imagine any scenario where it turns out that Walmart is wrong?

Here are some facts we could imagine, just hypothetically, that for all you know could turn out to be true:

We find out the woman is a mother of three children. Still feeling good?

We find out that she was presently holding and struggling with one of her children as she went through checkout, providing a constant distraction. Still feeling good?

We find out she bought over a hundred other items equaling about $300 worth of goods. Still certain she intended to shoplift $20 of stuff?

We find out the day before another woman did the same thing and they let her go. Still feel like Walmart is acting okay?

We find out that the other woman who did this and was let go was white; and the plaintiff here was black. Still feel like there is no chance that Walmart was off base?

And you could imagine a million scenarios. The security guard was a woman, too, and mad because of a romantic rivalry. Or if the guard was a man, and had been dating the plaintiff until she recently broke it off. Or maybe the security guard was just low on his “catching crooks” quota or feeling some other kind of pressure to get someone arrested.

Now, all of those above are hypothetical. I have no evidence of any of that. But that illustrates that there is a lot we don’t know about this case. all we have is one side’s story, filtered by a lawyer.

Now you might say, “well, if any of that was true, then they would be alleging it in the complaint.” and that would be incorrect. Many lawyers are deliberately hold back some of the most damning information from their complaint on the theory that they don’t want to give the other side warning. So we can’t even be sure that these are the facts as seen in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.

No, unless you actually want to say it is never wrong to ever detain a suspected shoplifter who might have taken the items accidentally, then you can only conclude that we really don’t know enough yet to draw any conclusions about the case.

And even intentional concealment by itself is not a crime. Indeed I told you what you had to prove to make it a crime.

I have worked in 4 states and DC and I can tell you that unless they changed the law in the last 20 years, your statement is wrong. Either way, it doesn’t matter because what the STORE did was perfectly legal. They don’t have to prove a crime in the store. That is for the prosecutor to do.

I told you before that they had someone who concealed items and then walked out without paying for them. They have met their burden for stopping the woman, detaining her, and calling the police.

You know that is deceptive to leave that out. I know it.

The truth is not deceptive. You yourself wrote if a person buys a large plastic bin, and make sure it is empty before they leave. . The mere stopping at a register to pay for one item does not mean that the person is not stealing other items.

Yeah, I believe that. /sarcasm.

Okay. I will take that to mean that you aren’t willing to accept any experiences other than your own.

Which, by her account, was not even done knowingly.

Once again, the woman, by your own account, concealed the items. She then left the store without paying for them. The store met their burden.

So since bad people can lie and say the same things that good people say, lets just assume that any time anyone asserts a valid defense, they are lying.

You are the one making the big deal out of her statement. All I am saying is that her denial is no proof or even evidence that she made a mistake.

Because you apparently have faith in their infalliability.

No, because the store did NOTHING WRONG.

Actually if you are going to detain her beyond what is necessary to retrieve your property, black letter law says you have to have evidence of her intent.

The concealment IS her intent. The walking past the registers IS her intent. I have been through too many of these trials to say otherwise.

No, unless you actually want to say it is never wrong to ever detain a suspected shoplifter who might have taken the items accidentally, then you can only conclude that we really don’t know enough yet to draw any conclusions about the case.

I’ll say this. It is never wrong to detain a person who has concealed items and walked out without paying for them.

We can sit here all day and argue the criminal merits of this, but that doesn’t matter to me at all. WalMart did the right thing is stopping and detaining the woman. They were well within their rights. I am sorry that you disagree with that.

The woman’s suit is an attempt to make her actions and her irresponsibility the fault of WalMart.

Gitar

> I have worked in 4 states and DC and I can tell you that unless they changed the law in the last 20 years, your statement is wrong.

Concealment by itself is not a crime. It is just evidence of intent. And I am a lawyer in Washington, D.C., so I know.

That’s why she wasn’t charged with concealment. Duh.

> They don’t have to prove a crime in the store.

They do have to prove a reasonable belief that a crime occurred. And that is disputed right now.

> You yourself wrote if a person buys a large plastic bin, [when you were a cashier you would] make sure it is empty before they leave

Yes. Rather than accuse them of anything I would say, “hey, let’s open that up.” And if they felt accused, I would say, “look I do it to everyone. Like Reagan used to say, trust but verify.” And if I saw a purse sitting in the child’s seat, I would say, “please lift that purse up.” So rather than wait for her to leave the store, why not ask her before she left?

Well, you might say, because they wanted to catch her red handed. Well, except by this woman’s account they didn’t wait until they had caught her red handed, did they? They wouldn’t have had her red-handed until she actually picked up her purse and saw she had goods that weren’t paid for. Then if she puts the items in her car, then you know that even if she left with it accidentally, she was intentionally keeping it. End of objection, end of case.

Now as I repeatedly say, when WM puts forward its case, maybe it will turn out that they were acting reasonably. I am giving both sides the benefit of the doubt right now. But right now, I don’t have enough information to tell you who is right or wrong, thus it is not fair to call it lawsuit abuse. Not yet.

> I will take that to mean that you aren’t willing to accept any experiences other than your own.

I don’t believe in perfection, period. Which seems to be a running disagreement with us. You seem to assume walmart is perfect, I tend to assume it is run by human beings just like you and me.

But let me try this one. Okay you are perfect. All your friends are perfect. But you indicated you worked as security in a store like walmart. Have you ever seen or heard of a case where a person voluntarily said, “hey, I accidentally took this without realizing. Let me make it right.” Well, I am sure you will deny ever in your whole life seeing that either, because gosh, that might be conceding the obvious to me, but I can say I have seen people do that, too. And it seems hard to argue in that case that they were lying, especially if it was spontaneous and all that.

> Once again

Repetition is not refutation.

> You are the one making the big deal out of her statement. All I am saying is that her denial is no proof or even evidence that she made a mistake.

First, it is empirically untrue to say that it is not evidence. Of course it is evidence. Are you crazy? You apparently don’t credit it very much, but if the only evidence of her intent is her word you have to go with that. You don’t get to just assume a person is guilty.

But it is a real window into your thinking that literally nothing she could say even has a bearing on how you evaluate her conduct. Everyone is guilty to you. Intent doesn’t matter.

> because the store did NOTHING WRONG.

You can say that as forcefully as you want, but the fact remains, you don’t know enough to say they did nothing wrong.

> The concealment IS her intent. The walking past the registers IS her intent.

No, it is not. It certainly wasn’t for the jury. Then intent you have to prove is a desire to wrongfully deprive them of their property. If she had no such desire, if her intent was to pay for everything and by mistake she didn’t, then there is no case.

> It is never wrong to detain a person who has concealed items and walked out without paying for them.

Really. So let’s say this happens. A person walks out with several items hidden under her purse. She gets to the car. She picks up her purse and says, “oh, no, I accidentally took that stuff.” Then she picks up the unpaid-for merchandise and goes back to the store, approaches the nearest security guy and says, “I am so sorry, I walked out without paying for this. I don’t feel like going through the check-out lines, so here you go, take it back.”

Is it okay to arrest her?

Because by your own words, she did conceal items and walked out without paying for them. So I guess they would be right to cuff her and stuff her. And if she tried to leave, to tackle her and beat her, right? Maybe even to taze her, bro. Right? Because everyone who walks out of a store with unpaid-for items does it on purpose. There are no accidents.

Of course I am playing a word game, there. I am sure you would say, “okay, obviously that is an exception—I spoke too broadly.” Fair enough. We all say things inartfully from time to time and a blog comment shouldn’t have to be as well crafted as a contract.

But then, here’s the kicker. For all you know, the only difference between the woman in my hypothetical and the plaintiff is time. If the security guard had given her time, inevitably she would see the unpaid-for property and maybe, if given the chance, she would have done the right thing and either paid for it or returned it. But when the security guard stopped her in the parking lot that was no longer an option.

So if that is the only evidence of her “crime” (she put her purse on top of it and left after paying for other items, but not those items), then guess what? There is not enough evidence to believe she did that intentionally. And the reason why is because the security guard chose to stop her before she reached a point where she could no longer plausibly claim to have made a mistake, surely because he felt it was more important to recover the items than to make a perfect case against her. I am not faulting the security guard for stopping her, saying, “hey, you didn’t pay for that.” But then the price he paid, when he chose protecting the property over developing the case, is that he created an ambiguity that could have been avoided. And that means he lost his right to detain her beyond what was necessary to recover the items.

But that is assuming a set of facts that frankly neither one of us know to be the case. And indeed, I would be surprised if that is the full extent of the evidence on either side. In other words maybe there was evidence that made it clear she didn’t do this accidentally. Or maybe there was evidence, as she alleged, that it was “obvious” it was an accident.

But I get it. The truth is your experience has prejudiced you. Everyone is guilty in your eyes. There are no mistakes, there are no accidents. People never accidentally walk out with things that don’t belong to them. And Walmart’s security is never wrong when using its power.

But some of us don’t believe in perfection.

Concealment by itself is not a crime. It is just evidence of intent. And I am a lawyer in Washington, D.C., so I know.

I agree with you. Now allow me to thank you for admitting what I was saying – that concealment is evidence of intent. She concealed the items and therefore exhibited intent.

They do have to prove a reasonable belief that a crime occurred. And that is disputed right now.

I agree. Concealing items and walking out without paying for them is more than a reasonable belief as evidence by the prosecution of the woman.

Yes. Rather than accuse them of anything I would say, “hey, let’s open that up.”

Once again, thank you for illustrating that just because someone stops in the check out line does not mean they intended to pay for all the items.

You seem to assume walmart is perfect, I tend to assume it is run by human beings just like you and me.

No, the running disagreement is that you put forth your experiences, challenge anyone to disagree with you, and when they do, you say they are wrong. You value your experiences more than others. In other words, you guard the “perfection” of your experiences being right all the time and don’t allow for others to have different, contrary experiences.

Is it okay to arrest her?

Nope, but not for the reasons you want to attribute to this.

But I get it. The truth is your experience has prejudiced you.

Once again, you dismiss any experience other than yours.

Everyone is guilty in your eyes.

Once again, that is not the case. People who don’t conceal items and don’t walk out the store without paying for them are not guilty. In fact, the person that does may not be convicted of a crime, but the store has every reason and right to detain them and press charges against them.

People never accidentally walk out with things that don’t belong to them. And Walmart’s security is never wrong when using its power.

What part of WalMart acted reasonably when seeing someone conceal items and walk out without paying for them eludes you?

No one ever said WalMart or their security was perfect. In this case, their actions were more than reasonable.

They did nothing wrong.

But some of us don’t believe in perfection.

All evidence to the contrary.

Gitar

> Now allow me to thank you for admitting

I did not say she “concealed” them in the sense that she put her purse over it in order to conceal it. Sheesh. Are you too slow to understand the difference between intending an outcome and it being the result, intended or not?

But yes, if you could show she put the purse over the items FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONCEALING THEM, then it is evidence of intent.

> I agree.

And then you go on to skip over the entire step of intent. I mean seriously, you have absolutely no interest in what is actually in a person’s mind when they act—all you look at are results.

So you seem to have worked in security, and if not, let’s suppose you have. Suppose then you detain an old lady. And she finds the whole thing so frightening that she keels over with a heart attack. Does that make you a murderer? I mean you intentionally did something that resulted in her dying. So I guess you are! OMG! /sarcasm

Or we look at your conduct and deduce your intent. You didn’t intend to kill her. At most you negligently did (and probably not even that). So at worst it is negligent homicide.

And there is no such thing as negligent larceny. It is a crime you can only commit intentionally. Which means that saying it is an accident is a complete defense. And you know what? I’m not debating that with you anymore. This is black letter law, meaning that no one with a clue on the law debates that. You have to show intent and knowledge alone is not sufficient.

> thank you for illustrating

Something I twice stated. Yes, people sometimes fail to pay for everything, either by mistake or because they are crooks. And just because sorting it out is tough doesn’t mean you don’t have a duty to do so.

> you say they are wrong.

I say it is implausible.

> [me] Is it okay to arrest her?

> [you] Nope,

Why not? According to you it is always okay to arrest a person who walks out without paying for it.

> Once again, you dismiss any experience other than yours.

I am not going to debate your silly little absolutism. You think that no one who does that does it accidentally. You believe no one ever makes an honest mistake, and no one, upon realizing it, honestly corrects it? Well, we will let anyone who reads that argument figure out how plausible it is and what it says about your dark soul.

> No one ever said WalMart or their security was perfect.

No, you just assume they were right without all the facts. Look up the word prejudice. That is a classic example of it.

By the way, if you EVER are called for jury duty in a trial involving theft, you have a civic duty to show the judge a copy of this thread. And then the judge will tell you immediately that you cannot sit on the jury. The judge probably won’t say why, but the reason will be that you are obviously prejudiced against anyone accused of the crime.

I mean you don’t even bother to dispute the possibility that if the security guard had not intervened, that the woman might have found the unpaid for merchandise, and she might have acted to return it or pay for it. You don’t dispute that because you can’t dispute that. Because you just don’t know.

> What part of [“]WalMart acted reasonably when seeing someone conceal items and walk out without paying for them[”] eludes you?

What part of “you don’t know all the facts” eludes you?

I mean answer two basic questions:

1) do you know all of the facts?

2) could you imagine any set of facts where this woman was right? Any at all?

And in answering #2 feel free to read over the hypotheticals I offered a few posts ago to get your imagination running a little.

Wouldn’t you think this woman handled her purse when paying for some of the items at the check out? Such action makes it seem less likely that this was an inadvertant mistake.

Thirty years ago, oh crap age … make that forty years, my father was detained and threatened with arrest at another -Mart store – the K ones. Within the store he had moved from one department to another, say men’s wear to housewares, without paying for the men’s wear items. That there were ‘all goods’ cash registers at the exit didn’t seem to matter.

I was outraged. For better or worse, he was not a ‘wave maker’ and got his wish that the incident be forgotten. (Forgotten but for the minimal satisfaction I have received from a 40 year boycott.)

Frank

Well, there is a case where my experience colors my analysis. You should see the size of my wife’s purse. Its as large as a typical backpack. So you could easily be rifling through it and not see anything underneath it at all.

But I mean that is just one of those facts we need to know before we have an opinion on the subject. If she had one of those little itty bitty purses, given the likely size of the items purchased, it would strain plausibility to say it was an accident. On the other hand if it was a purse like my wife carries, it remains plausible. But then you expect the grifter to try to maintain a plausible story.

And look, at the same time, I tend to assume that people don’t stop people without a reason. Most of the security guys I have dealt with understand that you have to give people the benefit of the doubt. They know that if they make a mistake they might end up permanently driving away a customer. So needless to say I am pretty leery of her claims, too.

But we still don’t know enough to know the facts. Frankly I would like to know more about her background, and just how many things she was buying, etc. Like if she seems to be stable, have a steady job, maybe a few kids and bought like $300 of items, the idea that she stole $20 worth of goods seems much less plausible.

But then again people do crazy things. Remember that Bush administration official who was caught committing fraud at multiple Target stores. The con went like this. He would buy certain items. Then later he would come back to the store and pick up the same items off the shelf and then go up to customer service and “pretend” he owned that stuff and would then “return” those items. He would make $500 a pop. But bluntly, wouldn’t you expect that he was already making 6 figures in the white house? So stealing so little when he made so much is… borderline crazy.

Hell just a few months ago, someone stole my PSP. I know who did it and she is a grandmother. A grandmother! Whisky Tango Foxtrot?!

Whether the shopper committed a crime was decided by the jury. No. The question is not that, but rather whether the arrest was proper. The shopper stipulated that her purse did conceal items and that she controlled her purse. Since the authorities agreed that there was probable cause that a theft was committed, why would the store be liable for anything?

The jury cannot decide if someone has committed a crime, only if there is no other reasonable explanation. Nor can they decide if someone did not commit a crime, only if it wasn’t proven beyond a reasonable doubt by the prosecutor.

William

People can be, and are, tried for crimes they are utterly innocent of. I call your attention to the duke lacrosse team. It is often said a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich and the duke non-rape case attests to that.

But then again a person can be pretty damn guilty and still be acquitted. the OJ case attests to that. and i don’t beat up the criminal jury for acquitting him. i disagree, but i don’t beat them up for it. its all about burden of proof.

So for the criminal case, they needed to have proof beyond a reasonable doubt. in the civil case, typically she would have to show the detention, and then they would have to prove the affirmative defense that they reasonably believed she committed a crime. so they do have a burden to bear but obviously it is considerably less than needed for a crime. they only have to show that it is more likely than not they had this reasonable belief.

Do i think she has an uphill battle? you bet. but at the same time, we don’t know enough facts to say one side or the other is so clearly in the right that this suit is clearly frivolous. now maybe if you were there when it all happened you would know it was ridiculous for her to sue them. or maybe you would know it is ridiculous that they thought she was a theif. and from where we sit i say it is logically impossible to know or even guess with a strong likelihood of success, which one it will turn out to be.

Perhaps the security guard can file a class action suit against the designers and manufacturers of gigantic handbags, which end up making soccer moms everywhere look like potential shoplifters. Surely this must make any loss-prevention personnel’s job unduly difficult! Although I do recall some fashion houses preemptively attempting to atone in the recent past by marketing clear plastic purses of the sort that stores have often required their female employees to carry. They must have gotten wind of the potential litigation!