An Alabama woman who says she was falsely arrested for shoplifting at a Walmart and then threatened by the company after her case was dismissed has bagged millions in damages.
The woman, Lesleigh Nurse of Semmes, Alabama, was awarded $2.1 million by a Mobile County Circuit Court jury on Monday.
Nurse said in a lawsuit that she was stopped in November 2016 when trying to leave a Walmart with groceries she said she already paid for, according to AL.com. She said she used self-checkout but the scanning device froze. Workers didn’t accept her explanation and she was arrested for shoplifting.
“She was taken to a Mobile jail, searched, held in a small room and required to remove her false teeth, something she didn’t even do in front of her husband,” according to reports.
Her case was dismissed a year later, which is when she started receiving letters from a law firm threatening to sue if she didn’t pay $200 as settlement, per USA Today. That was more than what her groceries cost during her trip that day.
Per USA Today, Walmart was sending these letters to others, too. Walmart and other major retailers often use this way of making back money in states that allowed it. This practice is legal in Alabama.
But Nurse decided to sue Walmart for damages, according to AL.com. The jury ruled in her favor.
“The defendants have engaged in a pattern and practice of falsely accusing innocent Alabama citizens of shoplifting and thereafter attempting to collect money from the innocently accused,” the lawsuit said, according to USA Today.
AWM pointed out:
Despite Walmart’s attempt to fight the verdict, a jury determined Nurse should be awarded $1.95 million in compensatory damages and an additional $150,000 in punitive damages. The award is intended to inspire other victims of corporate harassment to come forward as well as provide justice for Nurse and her family.
Lesleigh Nurse’s case against Walmart is a strong reminder that corporations must be held accountable for the way they treat their customers. And it also serves as an example of how justice can prevail even when powerful companies attempt to manipulate citizens out of their hard-earned money.
No one should ever have to face the kind of unjust treatment Nurse faced at Walmart, and her case is a showcase of what can happen when one stands up to corporate greed.
Watch the video report below for more details:
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