An Alabama woman was shopping at Walmart was she was suddenly accused of shoplifting. The woman, Lesleigh Nurse of Semmes, Alabama, was falsely arrested because of the bogus shoplifting claims and was forced to spend time with the police. She filed a lawsuit against Walmart and was further threatened by the company after her case was dismissed – but now Nurse has been awarded $2.1 million in damages for the horrible treatment she received at the hands of Walmart.
A jury heard Nurse’s case against Walmart and decided, in the Mobile County courtroom, to award Nurse a victory. The incident that sparked the entire debacle began in November 2016, around the time former President Donald Trump was elected to office. Nurse had paid for groceries from the Alabama Walmart and was proceeding to leave the store when she was suddenly stopped and accosted by workers.
Nurse explained to the workers that she had used the self-checkout aisle at the Walmart location. She explained that the scanning device froze during her checkout process and that she paid for the items. Nevertheless, the Walmart workers were not willing to listen to Nurse and had her arrested for shoplifting.
The shoplifting case against Nurse was dismissed about a year later. Nevertheless, she received a letter from a Florida law firm threatening to file a civil lawsuit against her if she didn’t pay $200 as a settlement. She was shocked because $200 was much more than the groceries she had been accused of stealing from the Fortune 1 company.
Nurse said that Walmart had hired the Florida law firm to send letters to customers across the country. And she was not the only person being harassed by the mega-corporation.
“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 suit contended.
During Nurse’s trial, a testimony was presented that claimed that Walmart routinely threatened lawsuits against customers in states where they would allow such a settlement. Walmart managed to make hundreds of millions of dollars by threatening customers with lawsuits over a two-year period.
Walmart’s defense attorneys argued that the settlement letters were legal in the state of Alabama. A spokesperson for the large company said that Walmart will file motions in the case because it does not “believe the verdict is supported by the evidence and the damages awarded exceed what is allowed by law.”
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.
