A woman from Alabama has won a lawsuit against Walmart, stemming from an incident that took place in 2016 when the corporation accused her of theft. A Mobile County jury has ruled in her favor in a unanimous fashion.
Lesleigh Nurse wins after Walmart accused her of theft.
In November 2016, Lesleigh Nurse was accused of stealing products worth almost $48 and was ordered to pay $200 in restitution or face a lawsuit.
Instead, the woman filed a lawsuit against Walmart after she was arrested following the store’s complaints.
The case took several years, but in late November, a jury finally reached a verdict, awarding Nurse the sum of $2.1 million.
She told WKRG: “At first you think, well, I’ll pay it and it will all go away. But then, I’m like, I didn’t do anything wrong — why would I pay for something I didn’t do?”
Nurse continued: “I hope it makes a difference. I don’t want anybody else to have to go through this again.”
When the situation was brought to her attention, she never thought things would go this far. She told herself at the time: “This will be resolved, this was an accident, this wasn’t on purpose.”
Nurse’s lawsuit says this is pattern for Walmart.
The lawsuit shed a lot of light on suspicious practices employed by the company after it was revealed that Walmart apparently frequently targets alleged shoplifters and even sets collection goals that have to be met.
Nurse’s lawsuit alleges: “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.”
Walmart reportedly refused to show a video surveillance that might have played in Nurse’s favor. She revealed: “It would have shown the truth, and that they didn’t want the truth to be shown.”
The practices have apparently led to lots of potentially mishandled cases over the years, with Walmart going after $6 million in total from various accused shoplifters.
It is not known if the verdict will have any impact on previous decisions, but there has been a lot of discussion about Walmart’s alleged shady practices as a result of the final judgment.
Many have expressed disappointment at the company for its strong-armed approach to handling cases like this one, especially in light of the corporation’s huge annual profits.
Walmart plans to appeal.
Walmart plans to appeal the decision. It released the following statement: “We want our customers to have a safe, pleasant shopping experience in our stores. We take measures to help prevent, identify and appropriately handle instances of theft, which is a problem for all retailers that costs the overall U.S. economy tens of billions of dollars each year.”
It went on to state: “We continue to believe our associates acted appropriately. We don’t believe the verdict is supported by the evidence and the damages awarded exceed what is allowed by law. We will be filing post-trial motions.”
Some are still actively following and discussing the recent developments, and one thing is certain at this point — Walmart will likely play their cards much more carefully when pursuing suspected shoplifters in the future after this incident.
