Johnson v. Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Inc.

437 F.3d 1112 (2006)

Purchase the Printed Copy at bsmsphd.com

Nature of the Case

To access this section all you need to do is click here and register.

Facts

After purchasing the compact disk, P asked a female clerk for assistance in locating the book. The clerk stooped down to retrieve a book from the bottom of the shelf, she, or her shirt, was touched by P. P claimed that he was merely trying to help the store clerk with her shirt, which she was trying to reach in order to tuck it in. The clerk maintained that P inappropriately grabbed her buttocks. The store clerk reported P to her supervisors that P had touched her inappropriately. Two store managers and a security guard approached P, accused him of having touched the store employee inappropriately, which D adamantly denied, and then escorted P to an office where he was detained for one to two hours. P was interrogated, photographed, and subjected to racially discriminatory remarks. When the police arrived, they questioned P about the incident, returned his ID and driver's license, which had been taken from him by D, and told him to leave the store. P was not arrested. P sued D claiming false imprisonment. P claimed that he suffered embarrassment explaining the incident to his family, developed a facial twitch and insomnia, lost weight, and was banned from D for the rest of his life. An expert testified that D did not have any policies or procedures to prevent employees from unlawfully detaining customers or exercising unbridled discretion handling customer incidents. P got the verdict for $117,000. D appealed.