Alabama Mom Accused by Walmart of Stealing $48 of Groceries Awarded $2.1Million

A woman who was falsely accused of shoplifting $48 worth of groceries from Walmart has been awarded $2.1million.

Lesleigh Nurse was shopping at the Semmes Walmart in Alabama with her husband and three children back in 2016 when the incident occurred. She was using the self-checkout and the scanner was malfunctioning — she even called an associate for help.

Believing she had paid for everything, the family made their way to the exit — when she was stopped by an asset protection manager.

"I remember going in that little room and thinking this will be resolved, this is an accident, this isn't on purpose," Nurse told WKRG.

But it wasn't resolved: she was arrested and charged with stealing 11 items — including Christmas lights, a loaf of bread, and Cap'n Crunch cereal — totaling $48. Her mugshot was even posted to Facebook.

The charges were eventually dropped, when Nurse showed up to court — but nobody from Walmart did.

However her ordeal didn't end there: Nurse then began receiving multiple demand letters from a Walmart-affiliated law firm demanding she pay $200 in restitution.

"At first you think 'well, I'll pay it and it will all go away,'" she told the outlet. "But then I'm like I didn't do anything wrong. Why would I pay for something I didn't do?"

But it turns out lots of people do: an expert called in to testify during the lawsuit exposed that Walmart routinely used civil recovery laws to chase customers it has accused of shoplifting to pay damages. According to University of Nebraska assistant law professor Ryan Sullivan, between 2016 and 2018 the company (which retailed almost $560 billion last fiscal year) charged around 1.4 million people across the U.S. with criminal theft — and ended up collecting more than $300 million from them via legal demand letters.

According to Nurse, Walmart refused to produce the video of her at the check-out, which she says would have cleared her name.

"It would have shown the truth, and that they didn’t want the truth to be shown," she said.

In her lawsuit, Nurse accused the company of "abuse of process", using the criminal charge — which she claimed damaged her reputation and hindered her ability to make a living — just to collect money from her.

"They prosecute her solely for the purpose of getting what they call civil recovery, or money," her attorney Vince Kilborn said.

And this week, a Mobile County Circuit Court jury unanimously agreed, awarding her $2.1million in damages.

"I hope it makes a difference," Nurse said after the ruling. "I don't want anybody else to have to go through this again."

In a statement, Walmart stood by its actions, and said it would be appealing.

"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 said.

"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."

It also claimed it "discontinued its civil recovery program several years ago," per WKRG.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, Walmart was forced to shell out a further $10million to a mom who lost her leg after stepping on a rusty nail in one of its stores.

According to her lawyers, April Jones was walking down the main aisle of the Walmart on Beltline Drive in Florence, when the nail pierced her shoe and foot.

Her wound became infected and led to three separate amputations; she ended up losing most of her right leg.

Once again, Walmart was accused of failing to produce video evidence to back up its defense.

"The weakness of Walmart's case, among other things, was their failure to produce a video that they claim showed their conforming behavior to a company policy calling for employees to perform regular safety sweeps," Anastopoulo Law Firm said in a release. "No such evidence was presented for the duration of the five-day-long trial."

And once again, Walmart plans to appeal:

"Walmart works hard to help ensure that all customers have a safe experience shopping in our stores," it said in a statement. "We appreciate the jury's service, however we do not believe the verdict is supported by the evidence or that Ms. Jones' injury resulted from what was alleged in her complaint. We have filed post-trial motions with the court."