MOBILE, Ala. - An Alabama woman who claims she was falsely arrested for shoplifting at a Walmart and then threatened by the company after her case was dismissed has been awarded $2.1 million in damages.
A Mobile County jury ruled on Monday in favor of Lesleigh Nurse of Semmes, news outlets reported.
Nurse said in a lawsuit that she was stopped in November 2016 when she tried 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. She was arrested for shoplifting and workers didn't accept her explanation.
Her case was dismissed a year later, but she received letters from a Florida law firm threatening a civil suit if she didn't pay $200 as a settlement, according to her lawsuit. She was accused of stealing more than the cost of the groceries she was accused of stealing.
Nurse said Walmart told the law firm to send the letters, and that she wasn't the only one receiving them.
The defendants allegedly engaged in a pattern of false accusing innocent Alabama citizens of shoplifting and then attempting to collect money from the innocently accused, the suit said.
WKRG reported that Walmart and other major retailers routinely use such settlements in states where laws allow it, and that Walmart made hundreds of millions of dollars this way in a two-year period.
Defense attorneys for Walmart said the practice is legal in Alabama.
A spokesman told AL.com that the company will be filing motions in this case because it doesn't believe the verdict is supported by the evidence and damages awarded exceed what is allowed by law.