Wal-Mart Shopper Accused of Theft Wins $3.2 Million

TUSKEGEE, Ala. —  A jury ordered Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to pay $3.2 million to a woman who said she was wrongly accused of stealing a telephone and handcuffed in front of her children.

The jury in rural Macon County returned the verdict Friday in favor of LaShawna Goodman, who was arrested Christmas Eve 1995 at the Wal-Mart in her hometown of Opelika.

Goodman was awarded $3 million in punitive damages, which are meant to punish and deter wrongdoing, and $200,000 in compensatory damages.

Mike Maher, a spokesman for Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, said Tuesday: “The facts of the case and the amount the jury awarded are on two separate planets. We will exhaust every legal remedy to right something which we believe is totally wrong.”

Witnesses testified that Goodman entered the Wal-Mart with her two children to exchange a phone she had bought a week earlier. She presented a receipt. Unable to find another phone she wanted, Goodman said, she retrieved the initial purchase, bought some motor oil and left.

Outside, she was detained and accused of stealing the phone, even after she offered the receipt.

Goodman was later acquitted of shoplifting and sued Wal-Mart for malicious prosecution.

Maher said there were questions over the authenticity of the receipt Goodman presented.

Goodman’s lawyers contended Wal-Mart security personnel have a quota for making arrests. Maher said there is no such quota.