I don’t think the analogy is faulty. Just as the store was in the wrong to detain Rigi, Rigi would probably have been wrong to hit the employee.
My understanding of the law is that there are very specific circumstances when you’re allowed to defend yourself by harming someone else (as Rigi would have done had he driven forward and the employee didn’t move). this wasn’t one of them, AFAIK. Rigi’s (appropriate) response was not to take action on his own, but to call the police, and to sue the store.
I simply don’t understand how you can justify him taking physical action. That would make him wrong. He had a right to leave, but not to hurt anyone in doing so. If he was being restrained, Rigi should and did call the police. That’s what I would have done.
I agree that there are other interesting parts. I see lots of them as already resolved (is anyone now arguing Rigi wasn’t a jerk?)
And maybe you don’t have to, but I thought the question we were asking in this thread was 1) who was in the right, legally, 2) how do you force people to submit to bag checks in a legal way. I enjoy responding to anything you post, but hope we resolve those questions, too.
That’s the strange technicality I’m talking about. He did not *prevent *Righi or his Dad from actually driving away. He prevented him form closing the door. I’m not sure how that will be viewed by a judge.
Well, I seem to be a similar kind of nut (as you see, I’m not in favor of extending the right to search by anyone–and again tangentially, I think police should if anything be held to a higher standard (as they seem to be, with the constitutional restrictions). And I agree that Search/seizure is a fascinating topic.
I’ve bricked up the door and first floor of your house. If you want to, you can jump out of the second-story window. It’s unsafe and dangerous, but you can still do it. Assuming that it’s in principle unsafe to drive with a door open (I was always taught that way), I don’t see how the store can claim they weren’t detaining rigi if he could only leave at unnecessary risk to his own safety.
For that matter, Rigi could have wandered out of the car, and had the freedom of… the circuit city parking lot. But that’s not where he wanted to go, and he was detained.
Okay, why don’t you explain what the difference is?
Both involve a customer deliberately walking out the door with a product he didn’t pay for. In one circumstance he colludes with an employee who de-magnetizes the security strip; in the other he works alone (presumably where there are no security strips).
See my above post. you hand cashier #1 your memory card. You give him $100. He rings up a stick of gum on the register. He gives you the card and a receipt. He puts $99.65 in his pocket. You have no idea what he did, never saw him before in your life.
I seriously doubt this “scheme” is happening. I doubt a cashier could pull this off even once without a customer coming back and complaining that her $100 purchase came with a $1 receipt.
I don’t think that’s correct. Thieves are stealing items because they want them or want to sell them. If they are stealing so that they can return them with another receipt, then that’s the receipt that will have the check mark on it. I’m not following your logic.
You’re making a straw man argument here. I never implied that the store has a legal right to force others to submit to a check. I gave reasons why I believe these stores have these checks and why I believe they may be successful in deterring crime.
Again, I never said that store has “right to stop someone”. I said fear of being stopped because one may walk past a bag checker may deter crime. That’s one of the three reasons I believe a store may have bag checkers.
Some kid is thinking about stealing something and sees a security guard checking bags/receipts at the door. I think it may be enough to change that kid’s mind. Maybe you think the guard’s time can be used more efficiently. I really don’t care. I gave reasons why a store might have bag checkers; I’m not justifying that these policies are the most efficient methods. My purpose of giving you the reasons was to show you that a bonus for customers getting their bag/receipt checked won’t work.
And once again, by advertising this is a bonus for voluntarily having your bag checked, the store is also advertising that their receipt checking is voluntary, causing many more than before to walk past checkers and making thieves feel more at ease following right behind. It’s a lose/lose for the store.
Well, yeah, it is your problem if the checks aren’t effective because you’re the one who just came up with this system. If it’s not effective, why even bring it up as some sort of alternative?
Voluntary checks aren’t against the law. If you’re implying that I said store’s have a right to break the law, cite where I said that.
They may not have a case unless they lie. What’s your point? Did I say something to make you think I would disagree with that remark? They may also have a case without lying as we haven’t heard both sides of the story.
And as I have noted endlessly above, I tend to agree with that. Although I’m not convinced a judge/jury will.
At what point were two employees in the parking lot supposed to have called the police? They haven’t yet successfully detained him. We also don’t know if employees in the store aware of what was going on didn’t call the police. I’m betting they did.
So no, a store doesn’t generally need those six things. Those are opinions on what guidelines a merchant may want to follow to help keep him from having claims made against him and is not specific to Ohio or what guidelines a judge/jury must follow to find probable cause.
Oh no, I never meant to suggest that I consider search and seizure law - or just about any other aspect of law - fascinating. Especially not the labor law brief I’m strenuously avoiding completing today!
Just wanted to chime in on the “deterent” argument.
Again, from my 20 + years in electronic security, I can give you one of two things: The sales pitch statistics or the real statistics. Lets go with the real ones.
Fact is, despite spending tons of money on security guards, bag checkers, cameras, anti theft devices, etc., crime, specifically shop lifting, remains astoundingly consistant across the board. It is one of the most puzzling things we ever deal. No matter if a store spends millions nation wide, that does not reflect any real drop in shop lifting. (Altough we have some nifty stats prepared for them). The only truth we have ever really garnered is this, (and we rarely tell anyone, it’s bad for business) Your customers treat you in proportion to how you treat them. The only real stats that show any appreciable drop in shoplifting are correlated with customer satifaction ratings. Those are realy the only numbers that consistantly match up.
IANAL either but my understanding is that you don’t have to wait to be physically touched to defend yourself.
If someone deliberately or accidentally jumps in front of my car while I’m driving down the road I’m not at fault as long as I’m obeying the traffic laws. If Righi is correct and they have no right to detain him then he is free to leave. If he warns them that he’s doing so and drives forward slowly then I doubt they would be injured. There’s not much chance they would risk bodily injury and I doubt he would be responsible if he ran over someone’s foot.
I’m not suggesting that was the best course of action. I’m only questioning whether the managers action are technically unlawful detention since, technically, I think he could have safely driven away. Of course I could be way off and a judge might show me that is the case.
to answer
I tend to think Righi was more legally correct based on what info I have. There’s still a question as to how a judge will see it IMO.
The only way I can see for now is a membership type store with that written in the agreement.
Perhaps having several signs posted stating that you check packages for security reasons is enough. Then customers can decide to shop there or not. Having the signs obviously posted might also mean that refusing the bag check is now probable cause. I’m not sure. I just don’t know all the legalities involved.
I do think that loss prevention is also an issue that very obviously affects honest customers so through communication we might find which inconvenience customers prefer. None isn’t a realistic option IMO.
Somewhat related, we have our return policy posted and available to all customers. Most customers don’t ask and don’t read it so it only becomes an issue when someone has a problem with it while making a return.
A lot of the interaction between consumer and merchant is about where the lines of responsibility are drawn.
I understand that you don’t agree. No further analogies are necessary. I’m not sure that a judge will see driving forward slowly with the door open as a real risk to Righi. We’ll see.
I find this very interesting. I just read a story about a guy who established a McDonalds franchise in a bad neighborhood. At first he had all kinds of vandalism and theft issues. His solution was to become more involved in the actual community rather than just the business. He used the restaurant not only to make some money for himself but went out of his way to help educate his employees how to rise above the problems in their neighborhood.
Staff and attitude has a lot to do with it. A good crew will help management deter shoplifters if they respect the managers and the business.
That’s getting harder in the large retail box stores because their employees are more and more part time and short term.
You are on the right track. The only numbers we have (besides the stats that are skewed, and I know they’re skewed cause I helped skew them) relate exactly this. Stores with the least restrictive return and exchange policies show a drastic drop in shoplifting. If you ever thought Wal Mart must be crazy for having such permissive return policies, think again: It is loss prevention.
[hijack] But retailers are getting more restrictive with camera returns to stop people from buying expensive cameras and camcorders only to use while on vacation, then returning them. [/hijack]
I think first of all, you are correct that you don’t have to wait to be hit before you hit someone. (that, after all, is the point of self defense-to stop bad things happening to you).
In those cases, however, there is imminent risk of physical harm. Which isn’t true here. Rigi suffered no harm he couldn’t fix in court, and (though IANAL), I think that the point of self defense is that it’s for cases where suing the guy later won’t be enough.
I don’t think there’s a risk of “great” harm by running over the manager’s foot (and relatedly, that it’s “very” dangerous to drive with the door open). I do think that Rigi, even wrongfully detained, doesn’t have a right to touch the manager if the manager doesn’t want to be touched (and hitting with a car, however gently, seems like a bad course of action to me, as the lawyers on the board have noted).
I think, in fact, we in essence agree. If Rigi could have left 1) without harming anyone else, 2) obeying the traffic laws, and 3) not increasing his risk, there’s no detention. If the guy stood in front, and Rigi could have backed up, he’s not detained. We just disagree as to whether he could have done so. I agree that could he have done so, there’s no detention. I don’t know enough about Ohio traffic laws, or what policemen there think is “safe operation” to hold more than a common-sense feeling that they wouldn’t like Rigi driving with the door open.
However, the manager’s intention was clearly to stop Rigi leaving. I think that’ll matter in court.
I think you’re exactly correct on 1) and 2). I’m not sure I agree about signs. I think at best, the signs will (as in costco), allow the store to throw the guy out or sue him, not actually search him (there are constitutional issues; I don’t think a court can generally order an individual to do something absent a law… they can order you to pay up if you don’t, but they can almost never order you to actually act, at least in a civil case
