Woman Who Sued Walmart over Shoplifting Arrest Is Awarded $2.1M | Hacker News Reader

Woman Who Sued Walmart over Shoplifting Arrest Is Awarded $2.1M

nytimes.com

21 pointsstarwind16 comments

Thought this part was interesting:

> Throughout the ordeal, Ms. Nurse said, Walmart refused repeated requests by her lawyers for security camera footage from the store. She said that the video was critical and would have shown a store employee helping her to scan items at the checkout, some of which had to be manually entered because of a problem with the kiosk.

> “I believe that they’re so intimidating and so big,” Ms. Nurse said of Walmart. “They’ve grown to be so enormous that they feel like they can do anything to anybody. That’s not right. Shame on them.”

> During the civil trial, which lasted about three weeks, the judge criticized Walmart for the “intentional loss” of the security camera footage, according to court records. The judge, James T. Patterson, said that the court would advise the jury that the videotapes “were destroyed by the defendants with the intent” to deprive the plaintiff of the benefit of seeing them “and that the jury therefore is to presume that the content of the missing videos would be adverse” to the defendants.

This makes me wonder if I have a case to sue Airbnb for being banned for life for refusing to pay a large fee for damages I didn’t incur, they asked me to prove I didn’t turn the gas on in a stove (that I never used) and leave it, causing the fire dept to break the door open, the cost of an emergency locksmith and the large metal door was > $1500 and I wouldn’t have used Airbnb again after that, but it really rubbed me the wrong way when I asked for things like a report from the fire dept, the bill for the locksmith, and they refused to provide it to me and asked me to provide my own evidence. Perhaps they have video of me drunkenly bumping into the stove knob, even so I have a hard time seeing how it’s my job to evaluate the safety of appliances at a rental location.

>Perhaps they have video of me drunkenly bumping into the stove knob

What?

The gas leak originated from the stove. The only thing I can think of where I might have had some involvement is bumping into the knob to turn on the gas flow. I have never owned a gas stove so maybe I am really off here but I’m trying to accept that maybe I was culpable or to see it from their point of view as a business.

Was there an earth-shattering kaboom?

Nothing caught fire. The smell of gas was enough to invite the fire department and they shut it off when they arrived. No damage but what was done by them.

It really feels like the case should be decided in favor for the plaintiff, with prejudice, in cases of destruction of evidence like this.

She won 2.1 million dollars.

As you noted, the judge reprimanded Walmart and specifically told the jury to assume the videos would benefit Ms. Nurse. And yet, "on Ms. Nurse’s claims that she was falsely arrested, imprisoned, maliciously prosecuted and slandered, the jurors sided with the retail giant."

This was a 3 week trial, the NY Times is providing small, selective portions of the testimony. Nobody should assume that from one brief article, they know more than the jurors did. Seems there probably was some solid evidence against Ms. Nurse besides just the videotape.

>there probably was some solid evidence against Ms. Nurse besides just the videotape.

WTF are you talking about? Can you even read what you wrote?

>The shoplifting charge was dropped in March 2017 when the store’s asset protection specialist failed to show up to court

This course case wasn't about whether Ms. Nurse shoplifted or not.

She didn't. There has been no evidence of that. Not only Walmart had literally nothing to show for that, they destroyed the evidence on purpose.

This court case was about whether Walmart was to blame for false imprisonment - and, frankly, they are not.

The police and justice system are at fault here. One doesn't need much to have a reasonable suspicion to make an accusation - mistakes happen; arresting someone has a much higher bar.

And the continued harassment from Walmart was what merited her 2.1M.

Let's stop with victim-blaming, shall we?

> Not only Walmart had literally nothing to show for that

You don't know that. Neither do I. That's the point. This was a 3-week long trial. Obviously there was a lot of stuff presented other than just a missing videotape.

I agree this was a civil case, Ms. Nurse is not on trial for criminal activity. But private individuals and companies do not have the right to detain you, the fact that the jury did sided for Wal-Mart on that part of the suit suggests they may have had some cause to do so. I don't think that is victim-blaming, in this specific piece of the trial -- not the others -- the jury did not find her to be a victim.

>You don't know that. Neither do I. That's the point. This was a 3-week long trial.

Yeah we know that. Presumption of innocence, it's called.

>That's the point. This was a 3-week long trial.

No, it wasn't. It was a 0-day-long-trial: "The shoplifting charge was dropped in March 2017 when the store’s asset protection specialist failed to show up to court." (quote).

>I agree this was a civil case, Ms. Nurse is not on trial for criminal activity

You seem to be missing the point that Ms. Nurse is not on trial for anything, and never has been.

In this case, Walmart is on trial for criminal activity.

>But private individuals and companies do not have the right to detain you, the fact that the jury did sided for Wal-Mart on that part of the suit suggests they may have had some cause to do so.

Well that's exactly victim-blaming: lack of a court decision on the side of the victim to insinuate that there was "some" victim's fault in it.

Since Ms. Nurse was the plaintiff, and we have this concept of presumption of innocence, all we know is that her team didn't present a compelling enough case to prove that she was falsely arrested.

Example: if she was "held" in a back room because a store rep told her "you have to stay here until the police arrives", closed the door, but didn't lock it - it's not false arrest, because technically she could have walked out. Proving false arrest is a pretty high bar.

Since Ms. Nurse is the plaintiff, the jury is obligated to side with Walmart by default, unless Ms. Nurse and her teams persuades them to take her side. You seem to be misled by the language of "jury sided with Walmart".

Let me make it better:

> on this charge, the jury didn't find the evidence presented by Ms. Nurse to be compelling enough to conclude that Walmart has committed a criminal act.

Do you have any further questions, or does the above makes things clear?

I don't think that's right. The way I read it, it seems like the employees made an honest mistake, so holding her until a deputy arrived might not be considered malicious or an abuse. However continuing the prosecution and demanding money from her after she was found not guilty was found to be an abuse and that's what was found in her favour.

I don't see how you came up with that conclusion. Nothing in the article, neither party's statements, indicate anything about an "honest mistake."

I'm going to point out that two NY Times articles about this situation describe Wal-Mart's actions differently:

"The letters stopped coming to Ms. Nurse once her case was dropped." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/business/falsely-accused-...

"The shoplifting charge was dropped ... but Ms. Nurse said that she continued to receive letters from Walmart." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/01/us/walmart-shoplifting-la...

So once the criminal charges were dropped, did Wal-Mart continue to demand money, or did they not?

My understanding is that they did, and that was the main problem.

No video, but surely Walmart has cash register logs and can pull up purchases from that day/time/lane. No word about that in the article :(

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