Charlotte shopper sues Walmart after ‘humiliating’ encounter over salad dressing
A Charlotte woman has sued Walmart, claiming store security and other employees threatened and humiliated her after salad dressing wouldn’t scan at a self-service checkout station.
Brianna Jones told The Charlotte Observer she spent $107 on groceries for her family and a disabled, elderly neighbor at the store located at 3240 Wilkinson Blvd. on March 25. Suddenly, the scanner quit as she tried to scan her neighbor’s $5.01 container of Hidden Valley Original Ranch dressing, she said.
She asked a nearby security guard to use his badge to fix the scanner because she still had multiple items to purchase, her lawsuit states.
Suddenly, what seemed like a dozen security and other workers surrounded her, she said in her lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Charlotte on May 1. She paid the $407 fee to file the negligence complaint at the courthouse, she told the Observer. The lawsuit is pro se, meaning she is representing herself.
At the store, a manager told Jones she inactivated the scanner because Jones was moving items too quickly through the scanner, as if she were trying to steal them, Jones told the Observer. The lawsuit claimed she was confronted over a bottle of mustard, but she later told the Observer that it was actually salad dressing.
Jones said she gave both receipts to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officer and store employees at the checkout station to prove she paid for the items — a $47 receipt for her family’s groceries and a $60 receipt for her neighbor’s.
A police sergeant called and interviewed her a couple of weeks after she filed the lawsuit and told her only seven security and other workers showed up at the checkout, she said. It seemed like 12 because she was so shocked and frightened, she told the Observer.
“Despite this clear evidence that Plaintiff had lawfully purchased ... the items in her possession, Defendant’s employees and the officer continued to detain and question Plaintiff,” according to her complaint.
Shopper says she was “held against her will”
At the checkout station, a woman working at the store “harshly snatched items from Plaintiff’s hands,” the lawsuit states. “The aggressive and physical manner in which the employee seized the items was unnecessary, unwarranted and intentionally humiliating to Plaintiff.”
When Jones questioned the police officer about the legality of the store employee’s actions, the officer grabbed Jones’ fist “in a threatening manner as if to arrest” her, according to the complaint.
Her lawsuit alleges she “was held against her will at the checkout area, felt threatened by” security workers and other employees and “was subjected to public humiliation in front of other customers.”
Store employees took both receipts and all the groceries, and never returned them to her, Jones told the Observer.
“They took everything,” she said. “I left Walmart with nothing.”
She is a stay-at-home mom who homeschools her children, she said.
She said she ran from the store in fright when the Walmart manager asked her to accompany her to a room in the back of the store.
Jones wants a judge to award her at least $50,000 in damages, according to the complaint.
A Walmart spokesperson declined to discuss the allegations in the lawsuit Tuesday. “We will respond through the Court as appropriate,” spokesperson Kelly Hellbusch said in an email.
Walmart has not filed a response in court to Jones’ claims.