Jan-Wren
I may have missed this if you've already stated it previously; do you shop at BB, CC, CompU and if so what do you do if, upon exiting, you're asked to show your receipt? When it has happened, I've always been treated with respect and respond in kind.

Exactly.

It's not a "Oh god, my rights are being taken away from me!" thing. It's a "Don't be an asshole to others for no reason" thing.

It seems like the only real prick in this story is the douchebag manager standing in the door of the guy's car, physically preventing him from leaving. I probably wouldn't have been as kind and patient to have bothered to call the police to remove the douchebag from my car.

While it certainly would have been much easier to just show his receipt in the first place - the douchebag manager and his employee went way too far over the line, and should certainly be out of a job at the very least.

This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read. Your rights and state laws do not cease to exist just because you happen to be in the parking lot of a strip mall.

If you drive through a McDonald's, do you feel that McDonald's is well within their rights to send an employee out to search your car to make sure you didn't snag an extra ketchup packet? You're on their private property after all.

How is the manager the only real prick? The customer acted like a dick from the very beginning, including calling 911 over it. That alone is enough for me to have the kid arrested.

The "kid" was well within his rights to call the cops because the douchebag was physically restraining him from leaving. It's either call the cops or physically remove said douchebag yourself. He actually did the right thing by calling the cops, yet got punished for it.

People are acting like the "kid" over reacted by not showing his papers at the door, yet you have no problem with the store employees basically laying down in front of the guy's car and refusing to let him leave the premises?

Really?

...and after this all gets settled and the guy wins his lawsuit, he should walk right back into the same Circuit City, go back to the manager with receipt in hand, and ask to return his products for a refund.

I think that he just might be past his 30 days by the time this has been settled.

Your rights definitely change as you move from public to private property because the rights of property owner start to take precedence over your rights as an individual. The case you state w/ McDs and searching the car is complete BS though since you still have a reasonable expectation of privacy wrt your person/property. A better counter example would be the fact if you are asked to leave a store, even if it's open to the public, and you refuse to do so you can be arrested for trespassing. Similarly I'm pretty sure stores can set policies (provided they are not violating any other civil rights/laws) that stipulate what can be done as a condition of shopping there (aka bag searches upon exiting the store). Of course since these things can't supersede law your relationship to the store will usually determine how far the search can go. This is where the reasonable expectation of privacy concept comes into play. First off wrt employees your expectations of privacy should be relatively low (provided this is outlined/explained in the employee handbook, which it usually is). WRT the consumer, for your car out in the parking lot you have a high reasonable expectation (unless of course you are there to get your car fix/have a stereo installed or something then that's gone) so there's no reason for the store to look there. On your person/personal bags as you enter the store you still have a reasonably high expectation of privacy, unless you are taking specific actions to lower that. If you have a see through purse/bag then your expectation of privacy wrt anything you put in there is lower than if it was not see through. Now some stores just eliminate the question altogether and prevent such things from being carried in (school bookstores, at least back when I was in college, are a good example of this). It's their property so they can set the rules that backpacks are not allowed in the store and it's not a violation of your rights/law although you are usually free otherwise to carry it where you please. As you're shopping and putting stuff into your cart I would say the expectation of privacy is pretty low. You are taking visible public actions that anyone around you can watch. (I don't know if there have been any cases related to this and whether or not employees can approach you/search your shopping cart, that would be interesting to find out though.) The tricky part, as we've been talking about, comes when you're leaving the store w/ your bag of merchandise you just purchased. Some people seem to be saying once the merchandise is in your hands it's yours and the expectation of privacy becomes high again based on that fact. The counter argument is everything in that bag was just laid out in front of everyone to see as it was being rung up so the expectation of privacy is still low. However the expectation of privacy wrt your person/personal bags is still high unless they can provide evidence to the contrary then whatever actions they are allowed to take should be outlined in the company's policies and restricted by laws of the jurisdiction. Since state law can vary widely what this means in reality can vary widely.

So the bottom line is, within the restrictions of the law, your rights can change as you move from public to private property. If it is not outlined in the law it is usually up to the property owner to decide what happens.

Depending upon how all this works out I strongly suspect he's going to be banned from CC for life (which isn't necessarily a bad thing IMHO ).

Your first point: What does anything you say have to do with what I posted? I never questioned CC's policy or make any claim about its current state other than stating the obvious fact that this isolated civil action and a possible few others that may arise in the future will not force CC to change their receipt checking policy. I have no clue what you were referencing in my post.

2nd point: There is no contradiction in what I said. A police officer requesting a driver's license from someone who is not operating a car happens, not everyone is legally savy enough to know they are not required to produce it. The cop erred in bringing this person into custody for such and the department, officer, or whomever will lose a lawsuit b/c of this. I never implied that anyone should be given a "free pass to break the law."

I merely stated a personal, non-legal, opinion that this entire ordeal is a waste of time as this person's actions were not made in the altruistic "champion for civil liberties" vein as the person described them. This was just someone knowing some of the finer points of law and using such knowledge to be a "thorn in the side" of a Circuit City and then knowingly allowing all then after involved (the officer, security guards) to commit tortious acts for which he could turn around and sue them for. At the end of the day no policy will be changed by CC or heightening of training by the local Police Dept to avoid illegal demands for a driver's license. Things will remain as they were, people will show their receipts upon leaving the store and the only thing that will change is that this person's family had the displeasure of seeing someone they presumably care about arrested and said person will be slightly more financially well-off than when he initiated this course of action.

He was well within his right to call the police, yes. But not to call 911. You can't tell me with a straight face that that was an emergency.

As far as the Circuit City employees being douchebags, absolutely. They certainly overreacted...but it wouldn't have happened if the guy hadn't been a colossal asshole to begin with.

The property owner has the right to remove somebody from their property - but that's about as far as it goes. A property owner certainly doesn't have the right to detain you on their property. They don't have the right to set up their own private Gestapo and create their own set of laws.


I don't see the difference. In both cases, you have a store employee illegally searching your private property - whether that property is your car or your shopping bag.

Once the customer pays for the product, that product is his private property. The store doesn't have the right to search through an individual's private property. The store certainly doesn't have the right to physically restrain you from leaving the property.

After the customer makes a purchase - should that customer be allowed to search the store's cash register? It was his money that they put in there - maybe they took too much. If the store refuses, should the customer be allowed to stand between the cashier and the register and refuse to let business continue?

Is there some other way to call the police and have an officer dispatched to the scene?

Why wouldn't he call 911?

True, it would have been easier if the guy just laid down and let Sanjaya search all over - but only the Circuit City employees and the police officer were actually in the wrong. The only thing the guy did was say "No" to the inspection process and walk out of the store. Once the employees chased him down and blocked his car - I would have been an asshole about it as well...probably even more so.

Of course, this is assuming that the guy's accounts of the story are 100% truthful.

Because it's an EMERGENCY number. This was not an emergency number. He could've called the non-emergency line of the police department and had an officer dispatched. Not difficult at all.


And what is the point of saying "no"? Is that ten seconds that it takes for them to look at your receipt really that vital? It's ridiculous.

I'm sure the guy's accounts aren't 100% truthful. My guess is that he probably threw a mini-tantrum upon being asked.

Honestly, everyone in the situation reacted, but the customer is most at fault for escalating the situation with his holier-than-thou attitude.

"Yes, hi operator - somebody is comitting a crime and I need a police officer dispatched to scene as soon as possible. Could you please give me the local number to the police office?"

Not sure what your point is. He used 911 for what it's intended to be used for. If I need a cop, I'm calling 911 - not sit and try hunt down an alternate number.


What's the point in saying "yes". It's 10 seconds for somebody to search your private property when you know you didn't steal anything. He said no and walked out of the store. That's where it should have ended. There's nothing asshole-ish about it - it's his right to leave the store with his property. Hassling your paying customers isn't a solution for preventing shoplifting.


The customer is the only one who ISN'T at fault. He never did anything wrong. He simply walked out of the store.

The situation escalated because the minimum wage scrubs decided they wanted to play make-believe vigilantes and chase the dangerous criminal down in the parking lot and put him under house arrest.

That's where the whole thing got fucked.

If somebody runs out of a store, chases you down in a parking lot, lays in front of your car and refuses to let you leave until you prove you didn't steal anything - are you going to apologize and show them a receipt and let them search your property?

Yeah...me neither.

I once had to call 911 for a non-emergency, and I immediately apologized and asked to be transfered to the non-emergency number. I was involved in a small fender bender, and they transfered me with no problem.

Maybe he didn't do anything wrong from a legal standpoint. But from a common sense and decency standpoint, he clearly did. Him acting the way he did had nothing to do with privacy; he just wanted to cause trouble so that he could claim he's being oppressed.

Showing them his receipt isn't an invasion of his privacy, nor is it a slippery slope that will lead to anything else. There is nothing "private" about his receipt. All his information was already stored in their computers when he checked out and paid. Circuit City could go back and print off another copy of his receipt if they really wanted to. If he doesn't want anyone to see what is on his receipt, then he better start paying cash for everything so that he's completely anonymous in their computer systems.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't say anything about anyone laying in front of his car.

The link explaining the Ohio shoplifting laws would seem to indicate otherwise.


As I said, that's one side of the argument, there is the other side that says there is no reasonable expectation of privacy since everything was just displayed.


That comparison doesn't even begin to make sense.

All Police Dept maintain a non-emergency number that is used for situations that are not emergencies. This situation hardly seemed like an emergency so the other number should have been used. Now how strict that jurisdiction is about this is completely up to them.

Actually that would work fine, and most likely the operator would patch you through directly.

Maybe they need to do a pr campaign about this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_telephone_number of course if not all localities have implemented it yet that might cause some confusion

1. Papers. Gestapo. Some of you really know how to over dramatize things.

2. Some of you have no clue what 911 is for.

3. I still do not see how asking for a receipt = bag searching. Can someone explain that one?

I can't believe the guy shopped at Circuit City.

Why is it so indecent to say "no thanks" to an illegal search, and walk out of a store? That makes the guy an asshole? The guy accusing him of stealing isn't an asshole? The guy chasing him through the parking lot isn't an asshole? The manager claiming he can legally search his private property isn't an asshole? The guy illegally restraining the customer isn't an asshole?

The guy didn't show a receipt. My God. The horror...the horror.


It's a backwards, retarded form of security. Why search your customers who obviously paid for merchandise in your store.

I walk into a store, buy a Nintendo game, go through the check out line, swipe my credit card, get a receipt and have the cashier put my $80 worth of merchandise in a Circuit City bag. As I walk out the door, the ever vigilant Santura notices that I have a receipt in my hand, signifying that I made a purchase. Clearly something doesn't add up here - we better check this out.

Meanwhile, person X walks in the store, rips open a few DVD cases and crams the discs down the back of his pants - putting the empty cases and security stickers back on the shelf. As he leaves the store, he has no receipt or shopping bag - so clearly Santura sees no reason at all to believe anything is amiss. Have a nice day sir - no hassle at all.

The system is broken. Somebody refusing to be searched isn't the problem.



Sorry, nobody laid in front of the car. One guy stood in front of the car with his arms stretched out to the side making a barricade, while the other guy stood at the side of the car, and forcibly held his door open. That makes it much better, I suppose.

I agree. Allowing a customer to examine the contents of a store cash register is a silly idea. Allowing a McDonald's drive-thru teller to perform random car searches is a silly idea. Positioning Santura on the perimiter of the store to rifle through your personal possessions is a silly idea.

Yet for some reason, we should just go ahead and put up with one of those, because we'd be an asshole not to let Santura illegally search us.

Go figure.

The concept that what was just on the counter and now in the bag somehow became sacrosanct in the 10' it took to walk from the register to the door is the silliest idea in this thread.