Walmart Said She Shoplifted; Jury Awards Her $2.1 Million

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Mobile, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama woman who says she was falsely arrested for shoplifting at a Walmart and then threatened by the organization just after her situation was dismissed has been awarded $2.1 million in damages.

A Mobile County jury on Monday ruled in favor of Lesleigh Nurse of Semmes, information outlets reported.

Nurse claimed in a lawsuit that she was stopped in November 2016 when striving to go away a Walmart with groceries she stated she by now paid for, according to AL.com. She explained she utilized self-checkout but the scanning product froze. Personnel did not take her rationalization and she was arrested for shoplifting.

Her situation was dismissed a calendar year later, but then she been given letters from a Florida regulation organization threatening a civil match if she did not spend $200 as a settlement, according to her lawsuit. That was much more than the expense of the groceries she was accused of thieving.

Nurse explained Walmart instructed the law organization to deliver the letters — and that she wasn’t the only just one obtaining them.

“The defendants have engaged in a pattern and practice of falsely accusing harmless Alabama citizens of shoplifting and thereafter making an attempt to obtain income from the innocently accused,” the accommodate contended.

WKRG documented that the trial showcased testimony that Walmart and other key retailers routinely use this kind of settlements in states in which laws enable it, and that Walmart designed hundreds of tens of millions of pounds this way in a two-yr time period.

Defense attorneys for Walmart reported the practice is authorized in Alabama. A spokesperson instructed AL.com that the enterprise will be submitting motions in this case because it does not “believe the verdict is supported by the evidence and the damages awarded exceed what is allowed by legislation.”